Fixing Broken Glass
by YamiPaladinofChaos
Summary: [Complete] Harry Potter has been forced into the darkness of Azkaban for three years. The sins of the past weighs heavily on him and the world. Is there a way to fix what's been shattered?
1. Prologue

Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling does. I own some made up spells.

Prologue

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Azkaban. Hell on Earth. The place where those guilty of atrocities in the wizarding world lay. Where the salvation of the world was locked away.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry Potter was different from all of the other prisoners there. It was not just that he was younger than every single one of them, a mere nineteen year-old among middle to old aged men, it was that he was innocent. That, and the fact that he was powerful enough to demolish the entire prison in a fit of rage.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _I think its time I got out of this hell hole,_ Harry thought to himself, _Be an good birthday present for me_. He smiled grimly, and was amazed he still remembered his birthday, when it wasn't of much importance to him. He only ever had a proper birthday party, at the Burrow after Fifth year. He shook the thoughts of that out of his head.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Indeed. You've spent far too long here already, _commented a voice sounding very much like the late Sirius Black, the other innocent convict of Azkaban.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Sirius, the whole reason I've stayed here two years longer than necessary was to control my powers. If I broke out the second I gained my power, I would have simply been destroyed. I couldn't possibly control all of that power, or use it. _Harry responded.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ For the past two years, after a very fortunate event, which gave Harry the power of literally, hundreds of wizards, he had been training. Dipping into the knowledge of both ancient and modern wizards, he learned many spells to destroy Voldemort. Ironically, some spells in his repertoire were from Voldemort, after Harry had mastered Occulumency and Legilimency, he proceeded to sneak into Riddle's mind to find spells of great power. He did this for 2 reasons.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ One, as some put it, was to know exactly what Voldemort had up his sleeve. He would not be caught off guard by anything the Dark Lord had.

Second, many of the wizards he had were light wizards. Harry had abandoned, to his father's shock, any pretenses of using the dark arts. It took a while to convince his father that he wasn't going dark, but simply needed spells of power. He would not be corrupted he vowed. Voldemort knew of many powerful Dark Art's spells, but simply did not have the power to use it or thought it weak. After all, he's got the Cruciatus for Torture and the Avada Kedavra for Killing. What else could he need?

_Well. I guess it's time to get out of here._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _You know, you could simply turn into your animagus form, son, _another voice pointed out.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Dad, I know. But where would my Marauder side be_? Harry countered. He could hear his mother's snort. I'd like to be original.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ And at this, Harry Potter raised his eyes. Unlike other prisoners, they gleamed, like emeralds. They were showed traces of eagerness. And so, Harry Potter flicked his finger, concentrating. His cell door, supposedly unable to be moved except by a password, was blown away like tissue paper in the wind. Only a lot heavier.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry Potter strode out of his cell, with long, powerful strides. The auror on guard ran in, and upon seeing the, "Most dangerous convict in Azkaban" walking towards him, eyes dangerously gleaming, he nearly wet his pants.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Time to go to sleep." Harry said, and wordlessly, a powerful stunner leapt from his palm and hit the auror who was blasted across the room, unconscious before he hit the floor.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _You could have just put a sleeping charm on him,_ yet another voice chipped in sounding motherly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Mum, I know. But I've spent three years stewing in a cell. A year of it was spent listening to you guys die. I think I deserve to work off my frustrations. _Harry said, defending his actions.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Is that the only frustration you need to work off?_ Sirius asked suggestively.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Several loud groans from various voices in Harry's head were heard. They berated Sirius for his comments. Harry shook his head. He thought blocking the dementors would keep him from going insane, but he gained voices in his head anyway.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Turning his mind back to what he was doing, he stood with a determined look on his face. Focusing, he chanted "Mensa Memoriam Mortis" and prepared a powerful ball of energy. It would knock out everyone except himself in the area, and erase everyone's memory of his escape. It wouldn't do to have the whole wizarding world chasing him while he recovered. The ball glowed, and then Harry clasped his hand and it exploded.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Somewhere, in a place not concentrating on his shields, he dearly hoped some of his former "friends" were in the building. As familiar rage and anger seeped into him, he shook himself. There would be time for bringing them down later. First he had to clear his name, kill Voldemort, and then deal with them.

When the bright light subsided, Harry Potter strode out of Azkaban. His eyes stung from the sunlight, not having seen it in years. Then, he cast a flying charm on himself, and walked away from Azkaban. He dearly wished he could annihilate Azkaban, but again, the wizarding world would probably chase him down to the ends of the earth, looking for him if he did that. They probably wouldn't know it was him, but Dumbledore would undoubtedly hunt whoever had that kind of power down.

When he was far enough from the anti-apparation wards of Azkaban, he apparated to cottage he had in mind. Heavily warded, it answered to his passwords and aura. As he walked into the room, he dropped himself onto the couch and let the blissful oblivion of sleep overtake him.


	2. Recollections and Wanderings

Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling does. I own some made up spells.

Chapter 1: Recollections and Wanderings

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry Potter awoke feeling incredibly hungry. He wondered briefly why sunlight was in Azakaban, before it hit him he had "released himself from Azkaban" before he came to this cottage. _Urggh… how long was I out,_ he wondered.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Three days son, James responded, sounding glad his son was awake.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Bloody hell. Three days. That gives me only four days to prepare. I guess I needed all of that to recuperate. I'm hungry._ Harry walked into the kitchen of the cottage, intent on getting food_. Hey, Chris, you guys put an everlasting charm on the cabinets, right? _he asked one of the numerous people in his head, who happened to own the cottage. He had given it to Harry.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Course 'arry. Lots of good stuff. Bit old fashioned however. _Chris' voice responded. Harry gave a mental nod, and proceeded to open the cabinets. After fixing up some hot tea and a large breakfast full of bacon, eggs, and sausages, he made a mental note to learn to conjure food. The wait was killing him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ As he sat down, consuming the large feast slowly, he was allowed to think. Not having to constantly maintain mental wards against dementors, who left the prison a year ago, or training his magic but hiding it, was a large relief. Of course, then the memories hit. Ron. Hermione. Mrs. Weasley. Remus Lupin. Ginny. Those who betrayed him. The room began shaking, responding to Harry's rage.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ I _know Harry, I know._ Lily whispered. _But not now. Control yourself.'_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ At his mothers heed, he calmed. _Strange isn't it. I lived with just your pictures and your final words. Now I have you guys conversing with me, _Harry mused. Of course, thinking about the photo album led to the destruction of it. Which led to Ron and Hermione. Which led to his trial.

_Flashback_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry Potter. You stand accused of the murder of Rubeus Hagrid and Percy Weasley. Do you have anything to stay for yourself before we pass judgement." Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic said, almost gleefully.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry looked up at the Minister, and looked around the courtroom. There stood his supposed friends and family. Ron, Hermione, and Lupin shot him glares of hatred. Ginny and Mr. And Mrs. Weasley couldn't look at him. Dumbledore looked disappointed at him. Ron and Hermione had personally testified against him. They never referred to him as Harry, but as Potter. Ron's jealousy had finally reared its ugly head. He gave testimonies of his eagerness to be the hero and get glory, and it tore at him. Hermione said similar things, and of course, if the bloody Boy-Who-Lived's friends thought him evil, then he must be.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny had not testified against him, thankfully. He had begun to have romantic feelings for her when he stayed at the Burrow, and she admitted to having the same feelings to him. She couldn't face him though, and her betrayal stung the worst.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ These events would have destroyed weaker man, broken him down, but Harry knew, somewhere deep down, that he would be reimbursed. That all of these wrongs would be avenged. This pain was just another burden he had to take on. Like Cedric's death, like Sirius' death, like the Prophecy.

ྭHe looked unshaken, and said in a calm, disconcerting manner, said, "That doesn't really matter, does it Fudge? You have this entire court stacked against me, and I don't even know how this system works. I just have some final parting words for all of you. You have sown a great wrong here today, and one day you will reap it!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The courtroom was silenced for a moment, until a voice broke out. "Shut up! You shame the memory of your parents and Sirius!" Remus Lupin cried and tried to lunge for him. He hit Harry once in the jaw, but the aurors reluctantly held him back. Harry nursed his injured jaw, looking downcast.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You're evil Potter. I can't believe you fooled us for 6 years." Ron said hatefully. He lifted up a book. His photo album. "NOO!" Harry cried. Ron chucked it, and together, he and Hermione cried, "Incendio!" His last vision of his parents was incinerated before his very eyes.

_End Flashback_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry's eyes stung with tears, and he shook them off. He would not cry. That had been one of the worst times of his life. The day they took him…he shuddered at the thought. He didn't need to bring that up. It was time to get to work.

He went into one of the bedrooms and showered. As he got out, feeling refreshed and cleansed, he walked by the mirror and did a double take. He had forgotten that the last time he looked in the mirror, he had been at Hogwarts and had been a skinny boy. The boy, no man facing him in the mirror was tall, with long hair that desperately needed to be cut. Thanks to his surge in power, his body and changed to match his power.

He decided to give himself a haircut. Quickly muttering a Cutting Charm his hair fell towards the floor. Afterward he looked at himself. His hair was now much better, but still as untidy as ever. He then changed into long black robes with a hood. He wrote down a note on parchment with a quill, both from the study room of the cottage.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Next stop, Hogwarts." Harry muttered, and he walked out of the cottage. He pulled the hood tightly over his head, and apparated at the border of Hogwarts.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He sucked in a breath. The Forbidden Forest. Where he had supposedly murdered his first friend Rubeus Hagrid and Ron and Ginny's brother, Percy Weasley. Again, he shook off those thoughts and walked towards Hogwarts. "Now how am I going to get Godric's sword?" He muttered.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Suddenly, a phoenix flew down to him, trilling it's wondrous song that still tugged at Harry's heart. "Fawkes." He whispered reverently. He stepped back, but Fawkes went onto his shoulder and sang its song, trying to comfort him. He smiled, and he had a thought. "Fawkes, could you get me Godric Gryffindor's sword?" He asked. Fawkes nodded and flew back up to the castle. After a few minutes, Fawkes returned with nothing it seemed.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry stared, thinking Fawkes had maybe given him away or the sword wasn't there. But suddenly Fawkes unclenched its claws and a bundle fell onto the ground. It was the sword! But not just that, his wand was there. They were held inside his invisibility cloak. Harry smiled at Fawkes and his mind was racing.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Why would they keep my wand? I thought they were going to snap it. Dumbledore probably had a plan,_ He wondered. None of his voices had an answer to Dumbledore's reasoning. _He definitely wasn't planning to give it back to me_, Harry thought. The look in the Headmaster's eyes was pure disgust and disappointment. He had said evenly, but still laced with hatred, that Harry was expelled.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Thanks Fawkes. Here. Give this to Dumbledore." Harry explained. As tempting as it was to walk in there and kick everyone's ass, it probably wasn't prudent to kill the enemies of Voldemort. 'Not yet, anyway.' Surprisingly, Lily did not reprimand him. She probably wanted to kill them too, for the pain they put her son through.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry smiled grimly, and apparated back towards the cottage. Now he had 4 days to prepare for Voldemort. However much he ran his plan through in his head, he probably could use a bit more planning. Plus, his power was probably not fully recovered, seeing as how he was malnourished and tired. Again clearing his mind of these thoughts that would lead to his betrayers, he sat down to prepare.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Dumbledore had been sucking on a lemon drop, not enjoying it as much as he used to 3 years ago, before…Suddenly he shook his head, unknowingly echoing his former pupil, trying to get the thoughts of The Boy-Who-Lived-To-Murder's trial. It had torn him apart, knowing that Harry had followed the path of Tom Riddle. This time, though, Dumbledore had nipped it in the bud.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He had many troubling thoughts. The Order of the Phoenix had begun a losing war against the Voldemort, and Serverus Snape had been told little of his plans. Voldemort was quiet, probably preparing for a major attack. Serverus had confirmed a major attack, but no word on its location.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Another was Harry Potter's breakout of Azkaban. The news was fresh, only two days ago had he been realized missing. The guards at Azkaban changed, and found the day's entire guards unconscious, with no recollection of Potter's escape. Only after an extensive search had they realized Harry Potter had escaped Azkaban, like Sirius Black before him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

Fawkes was absent, but most likely, he was having a good flight around the school, as he always did. Fawkes suddenly flew in, and dropped a note on Dumbledore's desk. It read:ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _In four days, Voldemort will bring his armies on Diagon Alley. Be there. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Dumbledore was disturbed. The informant was not Serverus. He usually reported to Dumbledore himself, and the note was not in his hand anyway. He could not place whose writing it was. Still, he could not ignore this. If it was indeed the case, he would have the whole Order on standby. If it was true, they would come once death eaters appeared. He would station a good number of the Order, but not the whole of it. He could call the others of the Order quickly enough.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ But Fawkes had accepted the note. He would only do that for someone he trusted. Dumbledore felt a tiny bit better, knowing the location of the major attack, but the numbers were great enough that it would be a difficult, almost impossible battle.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Four days later, Harry Potter paced nervously. From peering cautiously into Voldemort's mind he learned that his breakout had been discovered. Voldemort believed he had left the wizarding world, or that if he hadn't, old Voldemort would kill him himself. But Voldemort couldn't search for him, he was preparing for the attack today.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Same thing with the Order of the Phoenix. That note being delivered by Fawkes was a great stroke of luck. He knew Dumbledore trusted Fawkes' judgment, so the Order would be there, and occupied preparing to defend Diagon Alley. Which left them no time to search for him. He threw the invisibility cloak over himself.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _It seems everyone's been preparing for this day_, Harry mused. He too, had been preparing. He had checked over his spells, casted incredibly powerful charms on himself, and generally prepared himself for war. He supposed it was time to go to work, and finally avenge everyone. 'Today's the big day people.' He said to the crowd within his head. They all cheered and shouted encouragement.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _You'll do fine Harry,_ Lily said, trying to hold her voice steady..

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Kick his scaly ass son_, James said cheerfully.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Do me proud Harry,_ Sirius added.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry smiled at all of them, and disappeared away, towards his fate. When he arrived at the entrance Diagon alley, he took a deep breath. It was raining. A dark day indeed.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry was shaking. This was the day he was born for. His purpose in life, his destiny would happen today. Today Voldemort would be the first to reap the whirlwind, and he would be the one who took the brunt of him. _He's ruined my life for too long, _Harry clenched his fists, remembering the injustices done to him by the Heir of Slytherin.

_Relax Harry. You have all of us at your side,_ another, older and wizened, voice said.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Thanks Godric. I needed that,_ Harry responded. He looked around and took another deep breath.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It seemed Voldemort had won the day. The Order had lost. They were stuck in a circle, surrounded, without their wands. They had been disarmed. Some had been killed. He looked at the bodies. Tonks, Kingsley, Moody, and others he did not know were dead, probably from the Killing Curse.

Snape, and surprisingly, Draco Malfoy were bleeding on the ground, barely conscious, next to other Order members. _They obviously betrayed Voldemort, or were betrayed,_ Harry thought.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ There were probably around fifty death eaters down, and Voldemort was probably going to wait till he had finished off the order to bother helping them. He had half of his Dementors left, the rest having been defeated by Patronuses. There were about twenty five or so vampires as well, and at least half a score of mountain trolls. There were probably close to the equal number of vampire bodies and troll bodies or corpses littered around. There was a duo of giants, a trio of their comrades dead on the floor.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Voldemort looked triumphant, and he walked right up to Dumbledore. He was being held by 2 death eaters, bleeding from a cut on the side of his head, but his blue eyes still held defiance.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Well well well. Isn't this nice. You people are fools to think you could stand against me. Where's your precious savior now!" Voldemort asked mockingly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ A tall, gangly red-head responded angrily, "We know he's with you! Stop fooling around! Where is the traitor!" Suddenly Harry realized this was Ron. He had forgotten he wasn't there for three years, and that Ron was not a sixteen-year-old boy.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Crucio." Voldemort said, pointing his wand at Ron, who writhed and screamed in agony until Voldemort stopped. "No no no, Weasley, he was never a traitor. He never killed Rubeus Hagrid or Percy Weasley." Voldemort sneered. Some of the Order seemed to believe this, and Harry decided to let the megalomaniac have his speech to prove his innocence. Then he'd kill him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You liar!" A female voice shouted, and Voldemort looked at a the woman next to Ron. She had bushy brown hair. " Hermione." Harry whispered. He looked around, and saw other people he knew. Remus Lupin was on his knees, defiant but shaken by Voldemort's words. Mr. And Mrs. Weasley were the same way, with Mrs. Weasley looking downcast. Ginny looked close to tears at this confession from Voldemort, her eyes reading terrible guilt.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Crucio!" Voldemort yelled, and Hermione fell, screaming as well. "Don't call me a liar Mudblood. I do not lie."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "But the Map!" Lupin yelled.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Again, Voldemort applied a Cruciatus curse, and he smiled. "Well, werewolf, you have to remember something. Terrible wizard though he is, Wormtail," Voldemort said, gesturing towards a Death Eater with a silver hand, "had a hand in making the map as well. He watched you make it. I think he could fool it.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Oh yes, and the Prior Incanto you performed? If you recall, Dumbledore, Potter's wand and mine share a core from Fawkes. It's similar enough that I had an easy time using it. A little Polyjuice potion and a stunning spell administered by Wormtail was all it took to turn you all against your hero."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The entire order looked downcast, this final truth having overwhelmed them, destroying most of their abilities to fight.

"Foolish people. You have driven away your only hope of defeating me. NOW THERE IS NO ONE WHO CAN STAND AGAINST ME!" Voldemort crowed.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry decided enough was enough. He held a grudge, quite a large one, against those gathered, but he didn't want anyone dead. He threw off his cloak, knowing everyone's attention was elsewhere, and he pointed his wand at a group in his way and muttered, "Furor Tempestas." The winds picked up and slammed into the ring of Death Eaters, tossing half a score of them into various stores and walls, rendering them unconscious.ྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Everyone's attention turned to where the wind had come from, and saw a black robed figure. "I'd like to test that theory." The figure said calmly.


	3. Reap the Whirlwind

Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling does. I own some made up spells.

* * *

Chapter 2 Reap the Whirlwind

Everyone was dumbstruck at the appearance of this stranger. Voldemort seemed to gather his wits faster and yelled, "Take him alive. I want to torture him myself!"

Wormtail reacted the fastest. He quickly yelled, "STUPEFY!" and a jet of red light flew at Harry.

Harry merely muttered, "Contra Sacris Fortis." Suddenly, a bright, shimmering barrier appeared in front of him. The stunner struck it, and not only rebounded upon the Death Eaters, but also multiplied into twenty more stunners. Wormtail and a little less than a score of younger death eaters were struck by them and hurled away.

As the Death Eaters holding him let go, Dumbledore was amazed. With just two spells, this stranger had dealt with a large group Death Eaters.

The stranger suddenly ran forward and Dumbledore suddenly noticed a black ball of energy in his hand. _The Dark Arts?_ Dumbledore wondered, but before he thought the figure was dark, he remembered that this figure had used very ancient and powerful light magic. He was puzzled by this stranger's varying powers.

Harry put his palm at another crowd of Death Eaters. Focusing his dark rage into deadly powerbolts, dark bolts of energy shot out of it. "NULLUS TEMPESTAS!" The bolts struck the Death Eaters, pulling them into unconsciousness after a few painful moments.

The Death Eaters, urged on by their master, shot Killing Curses and other Dark spells at the stranger, although some did not, afraid to hit that barrier again. But the stranger did not use it, because it was a type of shield charm that needed to be activated, Dumbledore guessed, and was probably one use only.

Harry ran at them, a similar orb of black energy coalescing in his palm. Harry leapt over the spells with ease and threw the orb down. It swallowed up at least five more Death Eaters and erased them, leaving a small crater where they once were.

Without missing a beat, the Boy-Who-Lived spun around, pointing his wand at the mountain trolls and yelled, "Tempestas Ignis!" The stronger version of the fire spell impacted the trolls who were thrown back by flaming winds striking them down.

Without stopping he spun on his heel and pointed his wand at the Vampires and Dementors. "SACRIS LUX!" Harry roared, and a bright wave a light impacted the Dementors and Vampires, who were annihilated by the wave of pure light magic.

_Now it's just the giants,_ Harry thought.

_Just giants Harry? Are you feeling okay?_ Godric asked teasingly.

Harry simply rolled his eyes and watched the giants.

He leapt aside as the first struck with his sword. Harry pointed his wand at them and yelled, "SACRIS PONS!" A powerful orb of light flew from the wand and engulfed the giants, and they fell to the floor, unconscious.

The Order looked in awe of this stranger's power and abilities. With the Dark Creatures annihilated, there was only Death Eaters left.

He spun around, sensing a Killing Curse being created he pointed his finger at the Death Eater. "Ignis!" Harry yelled, and a jet of flames shot out of his finger and straight into Lucius Malfoy's chest, incinerating him as the Killing Curse was diffused.

Voldemort was awed by this stranger's power. He felt around with Legimency, attempting to find the man's identity, but found the stranger's Occulemency shields far too strong for him to handle. But there was a tiny hint of familiarity, and he struggled to remember whose mind felt like that.

Harry was astounded at his power. His power was incredibly strong, even beyond what he thought it was. _Well, having the power of hundreds of powerful adult wizards and others, not to mention being my Heir does that for you, _Godric said. Harry nodded in his mind, acknowledging the truth of the statement.

He had almost reached Voldemort, and now just half a score of Death Eaters separated him from his parents' murderer. The man who had ruined his life from day one. Ten puny Death Eaters. You had to feel for sorry for them.

Harry decided to take them and most of the others out of interfering in his duel with Tom. "Mensa Mortis!" He yelled, and a similar ball of power like the one that knocked everyone out of Azkaban out and wiped his or her memories appearing clenched in his fist. It had less range, thanks to the lack of time and his desire to have someone besides Death Eaters see him kill Voldemort, not for glory, but for proof, and no memory wiping powers added.

The ball exploded, sending those Death Eaters and about another two score more flying through the air. Voldemort shielded himself with a Protection Spell, but was thrown back a few steps. He glared at his newfound foe. Suddenly, he saw the hood move slightly and saw the eyes. Green eyes.

"Potter." He spat. Some of the Order heard him, but it took them a few moments to realize that Harry Potter was the stranger who saved them.

Harry was annoyed that Voldemort had figured him out. "Damn." He muttered. Now they would probably realize who he was.

"Well, well, well. Harry Potter. Come to save everyone again?" Voldemort sneered. The crowd gasped, and the Weasleys, Hermione, Remus, and many others looked even more guilty than before.

"I have not." He said quietly. The entire crowd shook. The same thought ran through all of their minds. 'What? Then why did he save us?'

"I have come to have my revenge. Not just for my parents or Sirius, but for everyone. All those you have killed, Tom. I am no longer just Harry Potter. I am the one who will bring Justice onto you, Riddle. I am the final instrument of your destruction. Today, Tom Riddle, you will reap what you have sown." Harry said, his words shaking the crowd, and angering Voldemort at the mention of his name.

"Now, how bout we have a rematch of fourth year. A duel." Harry asked mockingly, knowing Voldemort's penchant for melodramatics would make him accept. "Or do you need your Death Eaters to help you, Tom?"

At the mention of his real name, Tom Riddle shook in anger. "I accept, whelp. You will rue the day you fought me! I know Dark magic you could not comprehend!" He boasted.

"Please, Tommy. I know what your capable of. I've explored the depths of your mind. I know all your spells. I know how I can counter them." Harry responded, again sending a shiver through the crowd.

Several among the crowd wondered if Harry would kill them too. He certainly had reason to, and judging from his performance, he could probably kill them easily.

"Now then, shall we begin?" Harry said mockingly, and bowed. Voldemort slightly bowed, and before Harry had completely stood up, he had yelled, "CRUCIO!"

Harry was struck in the chest in seemed, and everyone expected him to fall in agony like everyone else. However, in reality, he had blocked it with a wandlessly and wordlessly casted shield, letting the powerful spell wash over them. He merely looked up, and said, "Ow."

"Grr… CRUCIO!" Voldemort roared, intent on getting that curse through those shields. However this time, Harry pointed his wand at Macnair and muttered softly"Do Paene."

As the light struck him, Macnair screamed in agony. Voldemort looked confused as Potter stood there calmly as Macnair seemed to be the one under the Cruciatus. Voldemort took it off, and Macnair lay there, disabled. Harry smiled and said, "What else?"

Voldemort shook, and deciding to kill him now, yelled, "AVADA KEDAVRA!" The jet of green light flew towards Harry. However, Harry slammed an energy ball into the ground and it propelled him over it. He withdrew Godric Gryffindor's sword, and slashed at Voldemort.

Voldemort was surprised by the sudden appearance of a sword, but rolled away and shot another Killing Curse at him. To his surprise, Harry struck it with the sword, and it dissipated. Harry advanced on Voldemort, a dangerous glint in his eyes.

Voldemort grew desperate. But he knew a weakness in Potter. He was too damn Gryffindor, expecting Voldemort to be honorable. But Tom Riddle had been in Slytherin, and would bend the rules to suit himself.

"NOW!" Voldemort roared.

On that single command, the remaining Death Eaters shot Stunners and Disarming spells at Harry, intending to let Voldemort kill him.

Harry turned, and stared down the onslaught of spells. He merely said, "Dissipio Fortis.", waving his hand. Suddenly every spell impacted an invisible wall and created ripples in the air. Everyone stared in shock at his display of raw power. Harry smiled at them, and yelled, "SACRIS LUX!" The sudden wave of light magic impacted the Death Eaters and threw them against a wall in the Alley.

Voldemort was, amazingly, afraid of another, besides Dumbledore. Harry Potter was far more powerful than that fool had ever been. He still had hope, however. He hoped that using the betrayal of those fools against Potter combined with his usage of the Dark Arts he noticed, might just convince Potter to join him.

"Very impressive Potter." Voldemort said softly, clapping. "Why don't you join me, Potter? The Light Side turned it's back on you. They could not see your potential I can. What can they offer you! They betrayed you!"

The crowd hung their heads low. Harry had every reason to kill them and join Voldemort. Some of them thought he would. But Dumbledore, the Weasleys, Hermione, and Lupin knew he wouldn't. Somehow, he wouldn't. They had to believe him this time, at least.

"No." Harry said quietly. "The Light Side never turned its back to me. If it did, I wouldn't be here right now. I'd be back in Azkaban, rotting." At this, several members of the Order winced, and felt another jab of pain at the suffering they forced an innocent 16 year old to endure.

"The Order of the Phoenix turned its back on me. The Wizarding World turned its back on me. The Light never did. And I would never join you, Riddle. It would shame my parent's memory."

Again, members of the Order winced. Lupin's eyes fell towards the ground, knowing the last words were a jibe at him, echoing his words the day of the trial.

_Sirius, James, Lily, please forgive me…_ Remus thought, close to tears as a result of the day's events.

"Fine then Potter. Die!" Voldemort yelled, "AVADA KEDAVRA!" Again, a jet of green light flew towards Harry, and he rolled aside. Glaring at Voldemort, he yelled, "EXPELLIARMUS!" A jet of red light shot from Harry's wand.

Voldemort, confident he could handle a Disarming Charm, yelled, "PROTEGO!" However, the he underestimated Harry, and the Disarming spell shattered his spell, knocked him down, and his wand flew away, landing at Harry Potter's feet.

Harry smiled, a grim, triumphant smile. "And Now I fulfill the prophecy." He said. Everyone except Dumbledore, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Remus were mystified by his response. Each of them knew of the Prophecy, seeing as how the last four Harry had told personally.

He put his wand away, and lifted the sword. He prepared himself to use the spell that he devised, to insure the Light's victory. He would not sink down to Voldemort's level and use the Unforgivables, but would draw upon the powers of Light to kill Tom Riddle.

"SACRIS GLADIUS!" He roared, and Godric Gryffindor's sword glowed, and it struck down upon the head of Slytherin's heir. An unholy scream was heard as bright light encompassed Harry and the Dark Lord.

Serverus Snape was astonished. He had barely been conscious, but the noises of battle woke him. He watched Potter demolish scores of Death Eaters like they were nothing. He gulped, knowing that Potter had every reason to hate him as well. _Even if he doesn't kill me, chances are he'll be Minister of Magic. Then he'll be in a position to get me fired._

As the light encompassed him, he felt the Dark Mark burning, and he screamed in agony. He could feel the pure power of Potter's attack being funneled into the Mark, and knew he was knocking out the remaining Death Eaters. Suddenly, he felt it stop burning. He looked at his arm, and double-checked to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. The Dark Mark was gone!

He realized what had happened. Potter had spared him!

The other Death Eaters were in agony, and they passed out. Harry obviously didn't want them dead, but some, such as Bellatrix Lestrange were so corrupted that the light killed her. His spell was doing its grim work, Harry knew. The immense power needed to erase Voldemort's soul required immense power and would probably kill everyone besides him. Not wanting needless slaughter, he devised a way to funnel the energy into the Dark Mark, through the Death Eaters' connection to the Dark Lord.

Snape realized just how powerful Potter was, if his spell could knock out most of the Death Eaters and slay multiple Death Eaters. He remembered the 6 years he had been spiteful to him, because he looked like his father. He recognized that Potter deserved his respect.

When the light cleared, Harry Potter stood, slightly bent from the effort, over the dead corpse of Tom Riddle. It was blackened by the immense energy he had used. All around him, Death Eaters were writhing in agony.

"It's done." Harry whispered, closing his eyes. He did it.

_YOU DID IT!_ Several voices in his head whooped joyfully.

_Please Guys, I have a major headache from that spell._ Harry asked. Thanks were heard throughout Harry Potter's head, and he moaned inwardly.

Somehow, Ginny found her voice as she stared at the boy who she had loved, and who said he loved her too. "Harry?" She croaked.

Suddenly, his head whipped out and his piercing green eyes stared at her, and the whole Order. The entire group again had thoughts about Harry killing them, but he did not move.

Ginny just stared at him, and after a moment, he turned away and Disapparated.

After a few quiet moments, Ron said the first thing that came to mind. "Bloody hell!"

Hermione and Mrs. Weasley berated Ron for swearing, but everyone thought that that summed up this day's experience quite well. As the Order and the Aurors collected the Death Eaters, their minds were elsewhere, on their savior.

Ron, Hermione, Remus, Dumbledore, Ginny, and so many more wanted to find Harry quickly and apologize. Little did they know, they would not see the Boy-Who-Lived for a week.

* * *

Thanks to Miri, Nina wyndia, Cara, snitch, vampire-serpent, Itty bitty evil kitty of doom, freespirit920, Frog1, Gryphonmistress, yasha, Violet, Huggiebear, Kees, e, met19, Tanydwr, Chassandra, Jedimaster Igor, liz, Roeschen, DarkFlower2113, Tower for reviewing! You guys are great!

Q&A

Gryphonmistress-Yes I am a Harry/Ginny fan. It's the only pairing with Harry that really makes sense to me. Harry is 19. In the beginning of 6th year he was convicted.

Huggiebear- 10 Points to you!

Tanydwr- 10 points to you as well! Plus, another 5 points for knowing the episode name!

Jedimaster Igor- Yeah, well, when there are thousands of Harry Potter fics, not everything in a story is orginal.

DarkFlower2113- I'm not. Thanks for the compliment. I update at a frequent pace, and except for one time, writer's block is rare for me.

AN: Thanks for reading and please review!


	4. Confrontations

Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling does.

Chapter 3 Confrontations

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry Potter awoke with a screaming headache and an intense hunger. He moaned, and said quietly, "Remind me to not use that much energy, the next time I need to kill a Dark Lord."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ '_Aye Harry. You really need to sleep regularly. These long sleeps aren't good for you,_ James said.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry's head whipped up. He was expecting his parents to disappear once he avenged them. _We wanted to say goodbye,_ Lily whispered. She obviously didn't want to leave her son, as all mothers did.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry's eyes began watering. "How long was I out_?"_ He asked hoarsely, trying to put off the inevitable.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _A week,_Sirius said.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry groaned. "Man, that spell took a lot more out of me than I thought."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Harry. We have to go. Most of the others need to pass on, now that our job is done, that Voldemort is dead. The spell is finished,_ྭJames said, his voice quivering.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _No… please guys, don't leave._ Harry begged.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Sorry Harry, we can't stay. At least we got to talk to each other for 2 straight years,_ Lily said, trying to make good out of the situation and not cry.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Besides Harry. You don't want all of us here when you do… things._ Sirius said suggestively. A collective groan was heard throughout Harry's mind.

ྭ_Stop corrupting him Sirius,_ Lily scolded good-naturedly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Harry, we will leave you with our power. We know you'll use it right,_ Godric 'nodded', _the world might one day need it. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Harry. We must pass on. Please, don't isolate yourself. Try and forgive them_. _The consequences of their actions should be enough punishment, so please, just try. That's all._ Lily asked softly, a mother's final advice to a son who was all alone in the world.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _How can I mum? Do you forgive Remus? Or any of the others? Do any of you forgive them for what they did to me? _Harry begged, knowing that this was the last time he would receive advice from his parents. Their guidance was all he had for two years.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

_Your right Harry. If I was alive, I'd punch Remus, _James growled, remembering how the last Marauder left his son all alone in what amounts to Hell.

_Me too,_ Sirius added. _Still, maybe one day we could forgive Remus.'_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _But Harry, if you hold onto your anger and hatred, you'll turn Dark. I know you don't want that, and none of us want that to happen either,_ Lily explained._They feel the consequences of their actions, and that hurts them. You don't need to do anything. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry nodded, and he whispered softly, "I love you Mum. All of you have been great, helping me. Thank you, all of you."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Lily nodded, he felt, and she sobbed, _I love you too Harry._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _We all do son. No matter where you go, know that your mum and me will always love you. You're my son, and I couldn't be prouder. Just please, don't live single,_James joked, trying to lighten the situation, as always.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry smiled through his tears, and nodded.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _You'll never be alone Harry. We'll always watch over you. Goodbye Harry,_ Sirius whispered.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ For the first time since he had inherited his powers and discovered he was the Heir of Gryffindor, he felt truly alone.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry Potter apparated outside of Hogwarts. He wanted to apparate within Hogwarts, which he could do, but required power, and he didn't really want to spend another few days asleep. No matter what Her-Granger, he corrected, said, Apparating within Hogwarts is entirely possible, just out of the power range of an ordinary wizard and their mentalities.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He walked towards the castle, and spotted Hagrid's hut. It was dark, and no one lived inside. He was saddened at the thought of his first real friend's death, and the fact that he was accused of his murder. Ha! He gave a dark chuckle, and pushed open the front doors.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He entertained the idea of bursting in and cursing everyone, but again, going back to Azkaban did not appeal to him. He could escape easily, but he'd rather not be a fugitive. But, he wondered, would they convict him when just days before he had killed Voldemort and single-handedly saved the wizarding world? It would be an interesting trial to say the least.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ And so he strode up to the Headmaster's office. The same gargoyle. Harry decided to guess the password, rather than smash the gargoyle. Interesting, but he didn't need a scene. He needed his things. Or rather, what hadn't been burned by his so called friends.

_**Flashback**_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "YOU TRAITOR!" Ron roared as he punched Harry in the jaw. The news of Harry's accusations had just reached him. His eyes watered as he hit Harry.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Please Ron, I didn't, please believe me…" Harry begged, but Ron didn't listen and punched him in the eye.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ " Mione, please, tell him I didn't do it. Please?" Harry turned to his other best friend, Hermione Granger, who had stuck by him no matter what, even when Ron didn't. But she looked at him and walked over and slapped him. Hard.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry fell to the floor, his eyes beginning to water, but he wouldn't cry.

_End Flashback_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Bad memories, Hogwarts had. He didn't want to be here, but he needed his school things. He needed his Gringotts key, especially. After guessing Dumbledore's password, "Donuts", he walked into the office without knocking.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Dumbledore was feeling immensely guilty, and saddened. It was similar to the last time Voldemort had gone, and again, the Potter family had to suffer to do it. He looked up to see the last remaining Potter looking at him coldly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Ah, Harry. What brings you here? Would you like a lemon drop?" He asked, feigning cheerfulness. Harry wasn't fooled and said coldly, "No. I came here because of necessity. My Gringotts key happens to be in my school trunk. I would like that trunk back, Dumbledore."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Dumbledore nodded, and said, "Your things are down in the dungeons, currently. I'll get a house-elf to bring them up, unless you want to get them yourself?" He said the last part hopeful of a yes, because they might run into Miss Granger, who worked as the History of Magic teacher, and Miss Weasley, who might currently be visiting her friend

"And please, call me Albus.".

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry, however, shook his head. He realized Dumbledore probably wanted him to run into some of his former friends.That wouldn't happen. Not yet. Dumbledore sighed, and called for Dobby.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "HARRY POTTER SIR! IT'S YOU!" Dobby squealed as he tackled Harry. Harry looked bemused for a moment. "DOBBY KNEW YOU WERE INNOCENT SIR! HARRY POTTER IS A KIND SOUL, WHO IS A GREAT WIZARD!" Harry smiled warmly at one of his few friends left.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Hello Dobby. Could you please get Mr. Potter's things from the dungeon?" Dumbledore asked quietly, but was secretly pleased Harry could still smile and thought that there was a small chance that he could forgive them.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Dobby nodded, and went to fetch the trunk. Silence reigned uncomfortably for a few moments, until Dumbledore realized something. "You sent me that note."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry nodded, and began pacing around the room. "Why Harry?" Dumbledore asked, trying to get Harry's intentions out in the open.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Because I needed Voldemort's forces thinned, and chances were that, knowing Tom and some of my former friends," Harry said scathingly, "They would probably talk about me, and Tom would tell all of you I was innocent, as a last guilt trip. I daresay Legimency really helps me understand the insane mind of Tom Riddle."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Dumbledore straightened at hearing that Harry was a Legimens, which brought his attention to the fact that Harry had defeated more enemies yesterday than the whole Order. "Harry, if you don't mind me asking, how did you do…those things you did? He inquired.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry whirled around, having been looking away for a moment, and glared at Dumbledore. "I do mind. But here's a question for you," Harry asked, his curiosity getting the better of him, "Why did you not snap my wand?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Dumbledore looked away and said, "Because I hoped that it could be useful in the fight against Voldemort, as a Priori Incantem, or at perhaps another could take upon your role." Silence reigned again after that.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "So what happened. Am I still a convict?" Harry asked quietly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "No. Pettigrew as questioned under Veritaserum. He confessed everything. Yours and Sirius' names are clear." Dumbledore said gently.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry smirked and let out a quiet chuckle. "So you decided to use Veritaserum there, huh?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Dumbledore winced yet again as Harry continued jabbing at him, letting his hatred spill into their conversations. They talked for a few more moments, discussing the fates of the Death Eaters, most were given the Dementor's kiss. Afterward, an uncomfortable silence fell.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Dumbledore, why the hell did you lock me up?" Harry asked suddenly. "You know the Prophecy. You knew I was the only one who could kill Voldemort. What were you going to do?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Dumbledore looked saddened, and said defeated, "I hoped you would be repentant one day. Or at the least, I could…"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You could sic me on Voldemort. I was always your pawn, wasn't I Dumbledore. You always did control me, send me against Voldemort again and again. You used me, Dumbledore. You used me as your weapon. You are the one I know that affected the court's decision the most. You are the great DUMBledore after all." Harry said sarcastically, putting emphasis on the Dumb in Dumbledore.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You bastard. You were so convinced of your own infallibility, the Marauder's map, and the Prior Incanto that you never thought to use Veritaserum. I didn't deserve that, Albus?" He asked, saying the Headmaster's name for the first time.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

"Now Harry, I know you're angry, but-" Dumbledore began, but Harry cut him off, his last vestiges of control over his anger breaking.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "ANGRY! ANGRY DOESN'T BEGIN TO SCRATCH THE SURFACE YOU BLOODY BASTARD! YOU CONDEMENED ME TO HELL, TURNED YOUR BACK ON ME WHEN I WOULD HAVE DIED FOR YOU! I LOOKED UP TO YOU! YOU WERE MY HERO, DAMNIT!" Harry ranted, obviously needing to get his feelings out.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Similar to his fifth year, Harry Potter began destroying some of Dumbledore's possessions. This time, his anger and magic did it. Several objects shattered and imploded, other fell from their height. Dumbledore could swear the castle was shaking. He was amazed at the power of his former pupil. He only wished it could have been seen forming under his guidance, and that Harry had never been sentenced to Azkaban.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Shaking, Harry calmed down momentarily when he heard Dobby's voice. "Harry Potter sir?" he asked quietly. Harry smiled and motioned him to come in. He opened the trunk, and looked inside. Old books and knickknacks.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Oh, Harry. I have another one of your possessions here with me." Dumbledore said, and he handed Harry the Marauder's Map. "It was most informative to us."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry studied it for a moment. "It's not infallible either, Albus." He said quietly. Dumbledore winced at the jibe at his trust in the map.

"I know Harry." Dumbledore responded quietly. However, a plan to give Harry some companionship was forming in his mind. Some living contact would be good for him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry, if you do not mind me asking, may Dobby come and work for you? I'm sure he would like that very much." Dumbledore asked.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry looked startled at the question, but upon seeing Dobby's eager face, he said, "No trouble at all. I'll pay you of course Dobby." Harry said kindly. _Besides_, he thought to himself, n_ow I don't have to cook!_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Dobby looked in awe at Harry, and tried to refuse to be paid, but Harry was adamant. "And call me Harry. I don't like being called Master." He requested.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Again, Dobby protested but was met with stubborn resistance from Harry. He finally agreed, and Harry smiled. It warmed Dumbledore's heart to see a smile on the boy's face, that even with everything life threw his way, he stood strong. He was a rock the wizarding world could depend on.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry nodded at the Headmaster, and turned to grab his trunk when one of the people he really didn't want to see at the moment burst into the room. "Headmaster, I need to speak to you about….." Hermione started, but upon seeing her former friend, she stopped. "Harry." She whispered.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ His head whipped around and glared at her, his eyes speaking of the sorrow and betrayal he had experienced, forgetting the advice his parents gave him, losing it to the depths of their betrayal. She winced, and her mind seemed to fall to pieces. She regretted that Ginny was not here, having left to go shopping at Diagon Alley from the Burrow a few moments ago, which had been repaired rather quickly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ In fact, the square where Harry had killed Voldemort was renamed Potter Square. Harry and Ginny needed to talk, she knew. The issues there were far deeper than the ones between best friends. These were issues of trust and love.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry thought briefly about saying some scathing words and cursing her, but thought against it. He was already emotionally exhausted, and he still needed to do other things. He would deal with this issue later. "Let's go Dobby." He whispered, and together they disaparated, completely ignoring the fact that Hermione said it was impossible, and in his mind, Harry thought vindictively, _Take that Granger._


	5. Alley Meetings

Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling does.

Chapter 4 Alley Meetings

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry Potter walked down the streets of Diagon Alley, admiring how quickly magic could rebuild the damage from the "Final Battle against Voldemort", as they called it.

_Of course,_ Harry though to himself as he noticed the extensive damage to one shop, with its windows completely shattered and shelves knocked down, a whole lot of that damage, more than he had thought_. It really wouldn't do to reveal myself right now._

Dobby tailed along behind him, levitating his trunk. Some looked at him strangely, but it was probably the fact that he brought his house-elf with him. As much as he loved Chris' cottage, it was probably better as a safe house. Besides, he thought humorously, _I think the Boy-who-Lived should live in a castle,_ he had brief images of himself brooding a castle, shooting down owls that came close, and scaring muggles.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He heard snatches of conversation, mostly about him. He picked up a discarded Daily Prophet from a week ago, and looked at it. The Headline read:

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Boy Who Lived defeats He-who-is-dead!_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Back to being the bloody Boy-who-Lived again, huh?_ He thought bitterly, remembering the slander and abuse the Prophet had put him through.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Another article, however, caught his eye. It read:

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Harry Potter to be awarded Order of Merlin First Class and 1 Million Galleons by Ministry of Magic, courtesy of Minister Fudge. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Minister Fudge states, "Somehow in my heart I always knew that Harry Potter could never do those things!" _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry threw it away, not needing to read it to know Fudge would continue making things up about him. He would be dealt with too, Harry would make sure a conniving, greedy politician was never allowed to stay in office, not on his watch. _After all, what good's fame if you can't use it to help deal with a few people?_He wondered with a smirk on his face.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _1 Million Galleons huh. Fudge really broke the bank_, Harry thought. _It's still not enough. I'd trade all of the galleons for my photo album, for my parents, for Sirius…_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He shook his head, attempting to clear his head before his depressing angst got to him. He looked up, and walked away. So he walked into Gringotts, the wizarding bank, and proceeded to go straight to the nearest goblin. "Excuse me, I'd like to open Harry Potter's vault?" He asked the goblin.

The goblin looked up, but thankfully didn't give him away or look in awe. He merely nodded, and responded, "Of course Mr. Potter. Do you have your key?"

Harry pulled out his shining key from his pocket, having removed it from his trunk a few moments ago. "Good Mr. Potter. But there is a new development with your account here at Gringotts."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked quietly.

"Well, there is your trust vault, and the Black Family vault and estates given to you by Mr. Sirius Black. The Ministry confiscated these upon your arrest, but Remus Lupin managed to keep anyone from taking them. They are to be returned to you, as you are now free. However, since now you are over the age of seventeen, and the legal age of wizardry, the Potter Vault and Estates, frozen by your Father's will and kept untouched, is now yours. The Ministry has already added one million Galleons to your trust vault."

Harry's eyes widened. He knew the extent of the Black Family vault share he had, three million Galleons alone. He also recalled he owned a small summer home in Florida, to 'retire', as Sirius' will put it. It was where Sirius had stayed.

"How much is in the Potter Family Vault?" He managed to rasp out.

"Ten million Galleons." The goblin said matter-of-factly, as if he was saying the sun was bright.

If possible, Harry's eyes widened even more. He didn't really want money, but with the extensive amount he had, he would probably never need a job. _Which is good, because I don't think me or society is ready for me to rejoin them. They'd probably try to give me a medal. I'd probably try to blow them up_, Harry thought, only half-joking.

"And what are the Potter estates?" Harry questioned, and one part of his mind knew one of the estates. It just hadn't occurred to the other parts yet.

"A Summer Home in Paris, The Marauder's Castle, and Godric's Hollow." The goblin replied.

Harry started at the last two names. "Godric's Hollow?" He croaked. He knew that that was where his parents had died and where he had become the Boy-Who-Lived.

"Indeed sir. It was left destroyed, as a tribute to you." The goblin responded.

"Thanks. What about the Marauder's castle?" Harry asked, shaking his head free from the flashing memories of a high-pitched laugh and a flash of green light.

The goblin, instead of replying, turned and called a goblin over. The goblin was carrying a note. "This was inside the Potter Family vault. It is a message."

Harry looked at the untidy scrawl similar to his own, and his heart almost stopped at the names: Lily and James Potter. It read:

_Dear Harry/Prongs Jr.,_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _If you're reading this, then your mother and I have died. I'm so sorry we couldn't see you grow up. But you have turned the legal age of seventeen, and are now old enough to inherit the family vault. The Potters, in case you never knew, are one of the oldest, richest, and influential families in the Wizarding world. Our trust fund insured you could last the whole Hogwarts years. Unless you spent all of it on a broom or something, upon which the goblins were instructed to move the same amount back into your vault._

ྭ_In case your wondering how I know you're a wizard, well… a bit before I wrote this you levitated some food towards yourself, much to your mother's dismay. (_Here Harry had a laugh_) Well, I've left you our Summer Home in Paris (Your mother dearly loved this), Godric's Hollow, I'm sure you know of our home, and the Marauder's castle. _

_I dearly hope you know of the legendary Marauders, if not Moony, Padfoot, Wormtail, or myself personally, then by word. Someone should have told you. The 4 of us bought this castle as a joint venture, as sort of the Marauder's home base. Lily was a bit skeptic to the name, but she loved the place. We were dearly sorry when we could not return because of Voldemort. Please Harry, I hope you didn't shake when hearing the name. Be strong. (_Here Harry smiled. He killed Voldemort. There was no fear in him towards Voldemort_.) The castle is our home base, full of pranking items and is heavily warded. In case of our deaths this was sealed, and only you and your legal guardian shall know the password. It is Marauder's Forever. Son, know that your Mother and I love you dearly. _

Here Lily wrote in neater, loopy writing.)_ I love you son. And James, How dare you write our will without telling me! (_Harry had another laugh)

_With all the love in our hearts,_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Lily and James Potter._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry's eyes were watering by the end, and carefully, he folded it and put it in his pocket. _The Marauder's castle huh. Seems like a good place to live. I definitely can't live in Godric's Hollow. Too many memories, and all bad ones,_Harry thought, pulling free from the recurring nightmare of green light and the final words of his parents.

"Thank you. Is there another way to spend money without having to carry it around?" Harry asked, when he suddenly had visions of him levitating a gigantic bag of money to pay for all the purchases he would make today.

"Of course. Give them your vault number, and just ask them to charge it. This card here will keep track of the balance in your vault and prove it is yours, and the money will be taken out by a Gringotts goblin and delivered to their vault. It is incredibly secure. The card has charms to make sure only the owner of the vault can carry it." The goblin explained.

Harry nodded, and after paying twenty five Galleons for the card, he walked out calling Dobby to follow him. He walked into Madam Malkins and got fitted for his robes quite quickly, once she saw who he was. He begged her to remain quiet, and she quickly fitted him. He paid for about ten black day robes, an equal number of cloaks, and a dress robe for good measure. _After all, _Harry knew_, if I'm to do as my dad says and not live single, I'm going to need it._

He thanked her, and charged it to his account, but Madam Malkin cut the price for him, so it was quite minimal. He asked Dobby to deliver it to his residence. He nodded, and disapparated with a crack. Now that Dobby wasn't tailing him, he could go elsewhere. It wasn't that he didn't like Dobby, but people stared at him, and he really didn't want to get mobbed.

Harry walked down the streets confidently, knowing he had huge amounts of money in his vaults, he decided to splurge. As he walked, he spotted the Apothecary, thinking _Well, I may need to brew myself some potions sometime, might as well stock up._

. So he walked into the Apothecary, and walked up to the man behind the counter. "I'd like a small supply of everything." Harry said calmly.

The man looked at him, studying him for a moment until he noticed the eyes and scar. "Harry Potter," he breathed.

Harry nodded, and asked how much. "uhh… five hundred Galleons sir." He responded.

Harry charged it again, and walked out, asking it to be delivered to his residence. He neared Flourish and Blotts when he saw another shop.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Magical Trunks and other items, it read. He walked in, he really liked the idea of one of those multi-compartment trunks. He walked right up to the clerk and asked, "Do you have any of the Multiple Compartment trunks?"

The clerk nodded, and said, "We have several different kinds. There are the regular three compartment trunks for a regular wizard. Those are about two hundred and fifty Galleons. A five-compartment trunk is better suited for a traveling wizard. That's five hundred Galleons. The seven-compartment, our largest trunk, is good for a wizard who needs a lot of space and travels extensively, such as an Auror. That one is seven hundred and fifty Galleons."

Harry thought about what he needed for a moment, and decided, _Ah hell. Why not? Might as well use those millions of galleons_. He bought the seven-compartment one and charged it again to his account.

The Clerk explained how to use it. "You can make each compartment into whatever you want."

So Harry spent another half an hour setting up each compartment. The first one was a living quarters, with a bed and couch, even a fireplace. The clerk said it could possibly be added into the Floo Network, but Harry said he'd do that later. The next one was a dining room, complete with a kitchen. It was a cozy, smallish kitchen. The third compartment was a dueling arena. A place where he could train.ྭ The fourth was a swimming pool (Harry decided to have some fun.) The fifth was a potions lab. The sixth compartment was an armory/conference room of sorts. It could be filled with weapons and dark detectors, and had a large table for conferences. (Harry thought it would be better to be prepared.) The last one was a storage room, where Harry could keep potion ingredients and other items of use.

Harry thanked the clerk, and walked out with his new trunk. He went into Flourish and Blotts to get a few books. Chances were the Marauder's castle didn't have a library, or, if it did, it wasn't up-to-date or full of things other than pranking books. He asked if he could see a catalogue of their selections, and the deskman nodded.

Harry selected several books about the Dark Arts and how to counter them, potions, transfiguration, and advanced spell work and construction. He asked them to be delivered to the castle, again. As he walked out, trunk in hand, he ran into someone.

The person he ran into was knocked into the ground, and a familiar, feminine voice was heard, "Watch it mister!"

As Harry prepared to respond, his breath had caught in his throat. It was Ginny. He didn't have a good look at her in the battle, but now he did. She was beautiful, even more so than in sixth year. Her hair was long and shiny, like shimmering fire. Her brown eyes however, were hooded and depressed.ྭ "Sorry." He said, disguising his voice.

He bent to help her pick up her books, and their hands touched. Ginny looked up at that moment when Harry's eyes could be seen from behind the hood. She looked up and saw the same green eyes she fell in love with over seven years ago. They stared at each other for a moment, each lost in the other's gaze.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry?" She whispered, not daring to hope.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Suddenly, hearing his name sprang him into action. His head snapped up and he spun around grabbing his trunk, saying quickly, "No, you must be mistaken."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Somehow, no matter how angry he was at her, he couldn't hold his anger and hate when he looked at her chocolate brown eyes. It was too difficult. She made him weak! He hated feeling like that. Harry stormed away, his cloak billowing in his wake, but Ginny would not let him leave her again.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "HARRY!" She called out, running after him. People began looking around, seeing a redheaded young woman chasing after a rapidly retreating figure. Some began realizing it might be Harry Potter.

ྭAfter a few seconds of calling out his name he stumbled a bit, and she grabbed onto his cloak and said sobbing, "Harry, I know it's you! Please, talk to me! Look at me!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ His anger, which had been growing from his run-ins with Dumbledore and Hermione reached their boiling point. He spun around and yelled in her face,ྭ "TALK TO YOU! WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I NEEDED TO TALK DURING THE TRIAL! YOU COULDN'T EVEN LOOK AT ME! DAMNIT GINNY! I LOVED YOU! APPARENTLY HOWEVER, THAT MEANS SHIT TO YOU!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny's eyes fell towards the floor, and she was unable to look at him. "I'm sorry." She whispered.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yeah well, sorry isn't good enough luv." He said quietly, and apparated away, towards his new home, trying to escape the thoughts that plagued him.


	6. Reactions

Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling does.

Chapter 5 Reactions

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny Weasley walked into the Burrow, her eyes beginning to water at the confrontation she just had between Harry Potter and herself. Mrs. Weasley was cooking, her way of relieving stress and anxiety. She looked up at the clock where each Weasley had a hand. Currently Ron was at home, all Auror's having been given a holiday, seeing as how they had worked non-stop, trying to stop Voldemort (Ginny, Ron, and Hermione had been forced by Harry to call him by his name). Ron had spent the entire time moping around, or looking for Harry. Bill and Charlie had felt bad too, though not as much. They had been out of the country at the time, and had been held up to come to Harry's trial. The arrest and trial happened extremely fast. The twins had felt really bad, they had not been they're usual mischievous selves for a long time. They too had not been present at the trial, having been away on Order business, but had encountered Harry before the trial.ྭ

--Flashback—

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry was stumbling out of the common room, injured after Ron and Hermione attacking him. He stumbled, trying to get to the Hospital Wing. But suddenly four large hands grabbed him from behind. The twins glared at him with such hate that Harry had to turn away. He couldn't bear that two people he had never seen angry, who he had personally helped finance their dreams, could hate him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You bastard." Fred said with a dangerous undertone.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I can't believe we ever trusted you. How the hell did you become a Gryffindor. Get out!" George added, and together they hurled him against the opposite wall. Harry groaned, the pain was intense. The twins looked at him just once more with the utmost loathing, and left without a backward glance.

--End Flashback—

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Fred and George were currently working at Diagon Alley, having rebuilt their shop as quickly as possible. They felt bad not being there at the battle, but like Professor McGonagall and others, they were needed at Hogwarts in case the attack was a bluff and Voldemort wanted to take Hogwarts while the Order was occupied at Diagon Alley. When news of Harry's innocence reached their ears, they were shocked. They almost cried with shock and disgust at their actions. But they decided to let Harry be.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Like Ron, Ginny wanted to look for Harry, but she knew, like the twins,ྭ he probably wanted his space. She wondered if he could ever forgive her, and let her back into his heart. He hadn't left hers, no matter how hard she tried to forget him. 'Why didn't I believe him? I loved him, shouldn't I have helped him?" She thought to herself.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ No matter how many times she looked at it, there was no excuse for what she had done. Harry had opened his heart up to her, and she ignored it. She supposed Dumbledore was the convincing argument for all of them. If Dumbledore believed, then everyone had to believe. Her parents had done that, as well as the whole wizarding world.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ 'And a fat lot of good it did us.' Ginny thought bitterly, walking towards the kitchen, intent on talking with her mother and crying.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Mrs. Weasley's thoughts were so jumbled up that she could barely concentrate on her housework. She turned when she heard her youngest child come in through the door. She was about to greet her when she saw Ginny's face. She was crying.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Ginny, honey, what's wrong?" She whispered.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I saw Harry." Was the only answer Ginny gave her mother, but it was enough.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Mrs. Weasley immediately realized what had transpired. Ginny had run into Harry Potter, her love, and he had been furious with her betrayal. Somehow, she knew it would be like this for her daughter. While she had not testified herself, she loved Percy, like all her brothers. Percy had stuck up for her when Bill and Charlie left and the twins and Ron picked on her.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The hurt she felt blinded her towards Harry's innocence. 'We were all blinded by grief.' Mrs. Weasley thought sadly. 'Why did it have to be this way? If none of this had happened Harry would be in the kitchen with us, laughing with us, and maybe Ginny would be engaged to him.'

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Mum, he hates me." Ginny whispered, shaking her mother out of her revere, and Mrs. Weasley looked at her daughter and knew how badly she was hurting. It was worse than when Harry had been imprisoned.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "He doesn't hate you Ginny. He's just angry right now." Mrs. Weasley cooed, but she couldn't help but know that Harry was justified to hate them all. She declared Harry as good as her son, and had been the first mother figure he had known. And she turned her back on him. She had proven herself wrong. If Harry was like a seventh son to her, then he should have been defended by her, like she would have done for all of her sons.

The sorrows Harry had known would have broken another man, Mrs. Weasley knew. Losing his parents before he knew them, living with people who hated him for what he was for 10 years was harsh enough. But facing He-who-is-dead several times, defying him, was a task most adult wizards could never hope to complete. He had seen a friend die before his very eyes, and then his godfather, the closest thing he every had to a father, die the next year. But being betrayed by all of his friends and supposed family, and still staying true to the light, that took real strength. She would have been proud to have Harry as her own son.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You didn't see his eyes, mum. They were full of anger and pain. Pain I helped cause." Ginny whispered.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ron chose this moment to come downstairs, seeing as lunch was close by, and noticing his little sister crying and his mother close to tears as well, he could guess what was wrong. They were talking about Harry.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "What's wrong Ginny?" Ron asked gently.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I saw Harry." Again, the simple answer was all that was needed.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Oh." Ron said, and sat down, and buried his head in his hands.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "How could we do that Ron? He always helped us out, did whatever he could for us. He was your best friend!" Ginny said, trying to vent her grief.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I know Gin. I know. I feel horrible, don't you get it. You didn't testify against him. You didn't burn his parent's photo album." Ron whispered, his head sinking lower and lower.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The door burst open and Hermione flew in. Ron looked at his wife and saw the look in her face. It was guilt, but a hint of excitement, like she knew something they didn't. "I saw Harry today at Hogwarts. He was talking with Dumbledore." Hermione said, needing to share her sighting with her family.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Ginny did too, dear." Mrs. Weasley said to her daughter-in-law.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "It was at Diagon Alley." Ginny supplied, and Hermione's eyes widened in shock. The room was silent for a moment.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry's power is incredible. I went up to the Headmaster's office to talk with him, because the castle was shaking a bit. When I got there, Dumbledore's office was damaged. There was no signs of a struggle, it was like Harry's rage destroyed the objects and shook the castle itself. And he apparated inside Hogwarts!" She said, obviously needing to reiterate a fact they all knew. Harry Potter was the most powerful wizard alive, perhaps ever.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Well, Mione. I guess you were wrong!" Ron said, unable to resist making fun of his wife, who had constantly reminded them apparating within Hogwarts is impossible.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Hermione glared at him, and sat down. "He didn't talk to me, but just left. I could see his eyes though. They were" Ginny cut her off, "Full of pain and sorrow and anger."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Hermione nodded, and asked quietly, "Did he say anything to you?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Oh yeah, loads. He told me how much I hurt him, though seeing his eyes was enough punishment for me. They were racked with sorrow, Hermione. I know that I helped do that, and it kills me." Ginny whispered.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Mrs. Weasley shook her head sadly. The tragedy of Harry Potter's life seemed never ending.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry Potter was thinking along the same lines as Mrs. Weasley at that moment, though he did not know that. He was looking at his parent's old photos, of the Marauders, of Lily and James. Some even had pictures of himself, when he was really young. However, he knew that they were dead, and that these pictures were the closest he'd ever get for a long, long time. Except for Remus and Pettigrew. He really would rather not talk to them, however. Pettigrew was as good as dead anyway, having received the Dementor's Kiss after his trial. And Remus betrayed him. That made him dead to Harry.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ 'The never-ending tragedy that is my life. I think I must have been one hell of a git in my previous life or something to get all of this bull dumped onto me. Just when I can gain happiness, life kicks me in the crotch.' Harry mused sarcastically.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The Marauders castle was a great place, not as large as Hogwarts but still a good sized castle. The photos of his parents caused him small stabs of pain, especially those with Wormtail, but still, he had come to terms with their deaths. He had avenged them.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Currently, he was busy exploring his new home. The potion ingredients, books, and robes had all been delivered to the castle a few hours ago, and Dobby had taken care of it. To make sure his privacy was secure, Harry put up a charm that would keep the knowledge of where he was secret, so that the delivery crews would not recall it. Only those he wished to find him would remember the location. 'Of course, to do that, you'd need people that you wanted to visit.' Harry thought bitterly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Again, he attempted to ignore his problems. 'Life just seems to be full of things to throw my way.' Every year he had a new problem. His life had been hell since as far back as he could remember. Everywhere he went he had been despised, but he still saved everyone. 'I should be one hell of a messed up git. A deranged maniac or something. But here I am, savior of the Wizarding World.' Harry pondered.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He brooded over the final battle. He had refrained from killing most of the Death Eaters, but some had died. He felt guilt, he really didn't want to kill them, not in his heart, but he had no choice. Azkaban had hardened his heart towards such sentimentality. There was no room for that when you needed to keep your sanity. All you needed to do was survive, and that took everything you had.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ 'It may have been boring as hell, with no one but insane convicts, dementors and later vindictive Aurors to talk to or at least see, and the food was terrible, but life was simpler in Azkaban.' Harry mused.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Dobby's sudden appearance shook Harry away from these thoughts. "Harry, sir. There are owls for you sir!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry walked towards a room he had not yet explored. Dobby had cleaned much of the Castle while he had been away, and had thus explored more of it. He led Harry towards a room, and upon his entry, Harry was bombarded with owls. Quickly dodging away, he yelled, "STOP! ALL OF YOU! STOP!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The owls settled back into place, and he looked at them. He decided to deal with official business first. "Any Ministry owls?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Two Owls swooped down upon him, and dropped their letters down onto a table next to the door. Harry looked them over. The first was an official apology, as well as notification about the transfer of a million galleons to his account, and erasure from his record of the accusations pitted against him, signed personally by Fudge. Harry sighed, Fudge was trying to save face.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The second was his awardment of the Order of Merlin, First Class. He sighed again; he really didn't want the title. He didn't want any awards. He just wanted to be alone. 'Life seems better for me that way.' Harry thought.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Okay. Now then, any owls from Hogwarts?" Harry asked. Many more owls came down towards him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Deciding that probably most of the teachers at Hogwarts had sent something to him, he decided to do this one by one. 'But which teacher.' Harry pondered. 'Which teacher did the least damage, and would therefore be able to talk to easier.'

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ 'Snape.' An amazing answer really. The only teacher to express hatred to him for 5 years was the one he didn't have the most resentment to. Must have been what happened the day he was arrested.

--Flashback—

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ As Harry Potter was dragged roughly to the front door of Hogwarts, Severus Snape appeared in the hallway. He had been informed of the situation. "I'd advise using Veritaserum, Minister Fudge." Snape said.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry's head whipped around, and he looked at Snape in surprise. His worst enemy was helping him. "Why are you doing this?" Harry asked, too depressed for tact.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Because, you are a Potter. I sincerely doubt you slew Hagrid or the Weasley boy." Snape sneered.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Snape was truly amazed that everyone could actually believe that Potter, of all people, had turned Dark. Potter's just didn't go dark, in his mind. There were too many inconsistencies for his Slytherin mind. No matter how much he hated Potter's father, that didn't blind his Slytherin intellect. Harry Potter could not possibly do that.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I think you should keep your opinions to yourself, Snape. Dumbledore's vouching you work for the light only protects you for so long." Fudge said, his threat clear.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Snape fell silent, and with a surprisingly pitying glance, turned away.

--End Flashback—

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Any letters from Snape?" He asked, expecting none. But Snape surprised him again, having sent a single letter.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He opened it and read it. It was definitely Snape's style.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Potter,_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _As much as I do not like it, I appreciate you removing the Dark Mark from my arm. You also removed it from Draco. He should have sent a letter as well. We may be Slytherin's, but we owe you. I am actually impressed Potter. I never thought I'd ever see a Potter using the Dark Arts, if some of those spells were Dark. _

ྭ_You'll be interested to know that the Weasleys, especially Miss Granger, now Mrs. Weasley, have been miserable. Dumbledore has been depressed as well. You surely have a way of making life interesting Potter._

_Snape_

"Short and to the point as always, eh Snape?" Harry chuckled.

Harry went through the other teachers, surprisingly, even those he didn't know sent him a thank you. But when Hermione Weasley's name came up in a McGonagall's letter, saying she was their colleague, he stopped dead in his tracks. 'She's a teacher?' Harry thought.

"Then again, that doesn't surprise me." Harry muttered.

He ignored Hermione's letters, but refrained from burning it. It might be good to hear her groveling later. He reached Dumbledore, and decided to see what the old nutter had to say for himself. He picked up the first one.ྭ It was short, but to the point.

_Dear Harry,_

_I would first like to express my utmost gratitude for your aid at Diagon Alley yesterday. I am truly in your debt for saving us, and would have totally understood if you turned against us._

_Secondly, I would like to state how impressed I am with you. You have taken everything thrown your way and stayed true to the Light. _

_Finally, I would like to give you my deepest apologies. I have helped put you through so much pain and suffering (here Harry gave a snort that clearly agreed), but I am again sorry. I hope one day you will forgive an old man for his mistakes. Please Harry, don't isolate yourself from the world because of mine and other's actions. _

_Sincerely, _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Albus Dumbledore. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry looked at the letter with a mixture of agreement and other feelings he had to sort out. He agreed on all three points, and was feeling a mixture of anger and gratitude to his former headmaster for understanding he did not want to be asked for forgiveness. With the Hogwarts letters (except for Professor Weasley) done with, he moved on.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Deciding to move on to Draco's supposed letter, he asked for it. An imperious looking owl swooped down and dropped a letter. Harry scanned it with his powers, and opened it.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Potter,_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Thanks, I suppose. Imagine that, me thanking you. But in all seriousness, thank you for removing the Dark Mark, which would have been a constant reminder of the Dark Lord. In case you're wondering, I turned spy shortly after I became a Death Eater. Didn't agree with the Dark Lord. That and getting tortured for nothing is not pleasant. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Draco_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ 'Slytherin's are definitely not ones for long, pointless letters.' Harry thought gratefully.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Any letters from people I don't know, drop them over there." Harry said, pointing to an empty corner. Half the owls dropped their letters right there.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ There were still plenty of owls left. "We're gonna need more help around here." Harry said, as he sat down to read the letters from those who betrayed him.


	7. Readings and Reflections

Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling does.

Chapter 6 Readings and Reflections

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry sat down, opening the first of the letters. It was from Remus. Remus. That disgusting werewolf who thought he shamed his parents. 'He shames my parents. They're pissed off with him now.'

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Dear Harry,_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Harry, please. If you're reading this, don't stop. Please. I'm truly sorry with what I've done, what I've said. I've shamed the Lily and James, not you. I betrayed your and their trust in me. Trust is not something I'm given often, and I violated your trust, your friendship with me._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Please Harry. I'm not asking for forgiveness. I don't deserve that. I should kill myself for what I did to you. I was supposed to stand by you, like Sirius would have. I failed in my duties as a godfather. I won't do anything drastic, if you care. I owe you Harry, and my life is forfeit to you. I can't blame you for disappearing on us, and I would never dream of holding it against you if you never wanted to see any of us again._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Just please, Harry. Don't harden your heart. Don't let this experience drag you down and bring you to the darkness._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Sincerely,_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Moony._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ 'He still thinks like a Marauder, at least.' Harry thought contemptuously. 'Maybe I should sock him, for Dad and Sirius. Of course, then I'd have to punch the entire wizarding world, or at least everyone I know.'

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry toyed briefly with the idea of writing a mean, scathing letter, perhaps lined with a touch of silver before immediately discarding the idea. 'Tempting, but a little too 'Dark Lord' for my taste.' He thought humorlessly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The comment about Remus being Harry's new guardian and godfather brought back bittersweet memories of the hearing of Sirius' Will.

--Flashback—

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ An officious goblin stood at a podium and after looking upon those gathered at the table, began reading the paper in front of him. "This is the reading of one, Sirius Thomas Black's will. It reads as follows:

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I, Sirius Thomas Black, being of sound mind do hereby bequeath my possessions to the following friends and associates, naming Remus Lupin as its executor. I hope I died fighting Death Eaters, for a good cause, rather than at the hands of the Ministry needlessly. I would pass on easier knowing this.

"First, I bequeath a sum of five hundred thousand Galleons to The Weasley Family, and my eternal gratitude for caring after Harry when he had no one. This is my small token of thank you, and I ask you to watch over Harry now that I am gone."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Mr. And Mrs. Weasley's eye's widened and the large fortune Sirius had handed them, and looked as though they would protest, if a Wizard's will was not binding and irreversible.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Next, I leave Hermione Granger with fifty thousand Galleons. Hermione, you truly are the cleverest witch I have ever known, and I know you will stick by Harry no matter what."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Hermione's eyes watered and she broke down, sobbing.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I leave Ronald Weasley with fifty thousand Galleons. Ron, we didn't know each other that well, but when I look at you, I am reminded of James and myself, in our younger, happier days. I know you will also stick by Harry, and I tell you and Hermione to sort out your differences, and also make sure Harry does not push you away."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ron had a small smile that he and Harry shared at mentioning James and Sirius' younger days, and Ron and Hermione blushed at the sort out your differences part.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I leave Ginny Weasley with fifty thousand Galleons as well. Ginny, I had fun hanging out with you this summer, as everyone else was so busy. I know that Harry will appreciate the young, vivacious woman you really are."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny and Harry blushed deeply at Sirius' comment, and Mr. And Mrs. Weasley shared knowing looks.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Next, I leave a Million Galleons to the Order of the Phoenix under the care of Albus Dumbledore. It gives me pleasure to know that the Black Family fortune will be used to fight the very evil it promotes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Next I leave Remus Lupin a Million Galleons. Moony, I know you loath charity as much as the Weasleys, but this is not charity. This is just me trying to help my friend, and at this point, the last True Marauder. Also, I leave Harry's guardianship and status of Godfather to you, Moony. Don't give me that werewolf excuse, Harry knows and still trusts you. He needs a link to his parents, and that's where you come in."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Remus looked about ready to cry at Sirius words, but somehow kept his composure.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Finally, I leave Harry Potter the remainder of my money, as well as Number Twelve Grimmauld Place and a small summer home in Florida. Harry, I know you're blaming yourself for my death and I won't have that. The person who fired the spell killed me, not you. Unless you fired that spell. Just kidding Harry.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I never said this, but somewhere in my heart, I thought of you as my own son. I'm sorry if this makes you uncomfortable, but I had to say it, if I haven't already. Harry, live life to the fullest, and don't ever change. You are the purest person I have ever known, despite the struggles I know you have faced."

--End Flashback—

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry blinked furiously, resisting the urge to fall to his knees and sob. Those words still rang true today, as Sirius told him. Pushing aside his feelings, he moved towards another letter.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It was from Hermione. From the looks of things, it was written right after the Battle at Diagon Alley. The handwriting was poor, and the whole paper was blotchy, probably from tears.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ 'How dare she cry! She wasn't the one who had to suffer!' Harry thought contemptuously, as his eyes scanned the paper.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Dear Harry_ (The Harry part was jerky, as if she could barely hold her hand steady.)

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Harry, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please, forgive me. I'm sorry. If you and Ron betrayed me, I wouldn't speak to you anymore. I know you're having a tough time. Please, forgive me._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ (The rest of the letter was so jerky and repetitive Harry didn't bother to read it.)

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Jeez. I left Know-It-All Granger without her brains. I should get an award." Harry said sarcastically.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He picked up a more recent one, seeing if she had gotten her brains back.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Dear Harry,_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Please read this. I hope you've read my other letters, but if you haven't, I understand. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Harry, I want you to know I regret nothing more than my actions against you that day. I feel so horrible Harry. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Harry, I don't know why I did what I did. I've known you since you were eleven. I've watched you again and again try to save everyone without thinking for yourself, and watched you take the weight of the world on your shoulders. But even though I judged you wrong that day, I know that you would want an explanation._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _I was torn, Harry. Torn between you and Ron. I chose Ron's side, and his thinking turned me against you. But I don't blame Ron, though you have every right to blame him. I didn't want to lose Ron, Harry. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _But at the same time, I can't help but feel I betrayed you, even then Harry. But I buried it by hating you. Harry, I know that Ron, Ginny, and myself hurt you the most. We had a bond, Harry. I mourned the death of that bond 3 years ago, and I regret those actions that severed any chance of repairing that bond when you were exonerated._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Harry, please. Forgive us._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Sincerely,_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Hermione_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry looked at the letter from the closest thing he ever had to a sister, feeling a mix of disgust and grudging respect for her.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ 'I think anyone who doesn't like Hermione, even Malfoy could see her intelligence.' Harry reasoned.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He tossed the letter next to Remus', and proceeded on to Ron's letter. Several of them looked so jerky that he couldn't read them. He decided to skip ahead towards a more recent letter, Hermione's before and after letters giving him an example.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Harry,_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Hello Harry. Harry, I want you to know that I'm really sorry mate. I just want you to know that, that I regret everything I said from the day you were accused to the day you showed up in Diagon Alley._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Mum, Hermione, and Ginny have been in a right state. They were bawling at odd hours, continuously. Ginny looks the worst, though._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _She's miserable man. Please, come to the Burrow. If not for the rest of us, then for her. She looks worse and worse each day. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Ron_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ 'Even after all these years, he still hasn't changed a bit.' Harry thought, a slight smirk beginning to show on his face. He was troubled, though. Ginny _did _look worse for the wear when he saw her at Diagon Alley, though in one part of Harry's mind that he chose to ignore, she was still as beautiful as ever.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He shoved that part of himself down, right next to the horrors he had faced before and in Azkaban.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He looked at a large assortment of different owls. He didn't really feel like looking through all of them, not today, maybe not ever. His eyes scanned the names, however. Neville, Luna, Fred, George, Oliver, each name struck a memory, which struck an upsurge of anger, and a tiny pang of loneliness.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Suddenly he found a large stack of letters. Each one of them had a name that had haunted his existence in Azkaban, a name that had circled in his head, taunting him, more than any other. Ginny Weasley.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He looked at the newest letter, as if it were a poisonous-snake wouldn't be right, Harry could deal with that- well just poisonous.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Tentatively, he picked up the letter, it's familiar, haunting yet loved scent of apple blossoms wafting into his nose. Ginny's scent. Even today, it made him warm inside.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Damn that girl. How can she do this to me!_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Shaking his head, as if it would dispel the hold the smell had on him, he focused on the letter, using his Occulemency training to shut down all other emotions

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Dear Harry,_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _I'm so sorry for what I've done to you. I know you better than anyone, but Voldemort fooled me. Harry, I have no explanation for the questions I know you are asking. I don't know why I betrayed you. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _I want you to know, Harry. I never stopped loving you. I tried so hard to stop when you were sentenced. A part of me died that day you were imprisoned, Harry. It came back the day I was told you were innocent, and I was racked with guilt. Please Harry, forgive me. Know that I love you, even if you don't love me anymore._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _I know that you probably don't want to here this, but I have said it anyway, just I as I did when you were shaken by Sirius' death. Harry, please. Come back to me. Please talk to me. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _All of these things I have said don't even begin to scratch the surface of what I feel, Harry. You deserve my answer in person, and although I don't deserve it, I want to see you again. Meet me at the Leaky Cauldron in two days, at 12:00._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Love Always,_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Ginny_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry mind was racing, just like it always did where _she_ was concerned. 'How dare she! How dare she say she still loves me!

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ 'Still, maybe I'll take her up on that offer. I do deserve an answer, from her most of all.' Harry thought resignedly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Suddenly, another brown owl from the ministry flew in. It was a breaking issue from the Daily Prophet. The headline caught Harry's eye.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Minister Fudge Declares Harry Potter Dead!


	8. Shaking things up

Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling does. ྭ

Chapter 7 Shaking things up

Harry looked at the headline disbelievingly for a few moments, and felt an upsurge of hatred for Fudge. The rest of the article did nothing to stay his anger and wrath.

Lines popped out at him. "Minister Fudge states, 'I deeply regret the death of Mr. Potter, who died after his heroic effort of killing the Dark Lord. We were friends, I'm proud to say, and I know that he would want me to watch over the world he fought to protect.'"

'Friends!' Harry thought amazedly. 'The man hated me! I thought him a stupid, bumbling idiot who was completely inept at running the Ministry! How the bloody hell were we ever friends!'

Another line. "Minister Fudge declares that his campaign for re-election will be in honor of Mr. Potter. The Minister's campaign ideal is to never allow a tragedy like that to happen again."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

The entire castle shook, just like Hogwarts did when Harry raged at Dumbledore. However, this time, Harry's self control snapped. Without a second thought, he Apparated out of the Marauder's castle, and since the wards were keyed to his magical signature, he didn't need to break through them. Although demolishing something would have done a small part of defusing his rage.

Dean Thomas was having another boring day, ever since He-Who-We-Are-Glad-Is-Dead had died. He was loving it. When he took the job as security guard at the front desk of the Ministry of Magic, it had been a highly respected position. He was charged as the front line of defense, and every day before He-Who-Is-Dead's death had been nervous and tense. He reported weekly to, surprisingly, Neville Longbottom, who was now the Head Auror.

Dean chuckled, remembering everyone's astonishment when Neville had become one of the top candidates for an Auror. His main weakness had been with Potions, though once Professor Sprout had given him the relation between Herbology and Potions, plus studying it independently from Snape seemed to turn him around, and although he wasn't a genius with Potions, he had managed to pass his N.E.W.T Potions exam, (Dumbledore's persuasion and Neville's own abilities had granted him that courtesy) and get into Auror training. Three years later, he was the Head Auror and a top member of the Order of the Phoenix.

Suddenly the distinctive crack of someone Apparating into the main Hall, even though the Anti-Apparation wards around the Ministry were impenetrable, erected by Dumbledore himself. Dean drew his wand and looked up, and stared into the face of his former classmate, Harry Potter.

Dean's eyes widened in fear as Harry walked calmly up to him. "I'm here to see the Minister." Harry said in a deceptively calm voice.

Dean had heard that tone from a few people, and it meant that Harry was anything but calm. "Uh… can I check your wand Harry?"

Harry's eye's narrowed, and he recognized his former classmate. "Well, well. Dean Thomas. Very well, here." Harry presented him with his wand, point first.

Dean touched the hallowed wand reverently, and checked it off. "Holly and Phoenix Feather, 11 inches?"

Harry nodded, and Dean presented him with his wand, his hand slightly shaking. "Have a good day, Harry."

Harry didn't even acknowledge the greeting, and walked through the door. Dean collapsed into his chair.

_Looks like we're gonna need a new Minister. _A few moments later, Dean had another thought.

_Bugger a new Minster, we're gonna need a new building if Harry blows his top!_

Harry Potter strode into the Ministry of Magic with a deceptively calm face, the only thing betraying his calm façade being his rapid, furious stride. People gaped at him in looks ranging from amazement and awe to downright horror at someone who mere hours ago had been declared legally dead.ྭ

Harry ignored it all.

He blasted the door labeled Minister of Magic down, ignoring the protests of several workers. An Auror stepped in front of him.

A single death glare sent the Auror fleeing for his life.

He walked over the demolished door, and yelled, "FUDGE!"

The authority and rage in the Boy-Who-Lived's voice sent whatever Auror's and workers foolish enough to remain packing.

The door labeled Minister opened a crack, and immediately slammed shut.

"GET OUT HERE FUDGE!" Harry roared.

Literally, Fudge was about to wet himself. He had been enjoying a nice, quiet day, telling to world Harry Potter was dead. It was obvious the boy wouldn't come back to Fudge's inept mind.

And now the esteemed by very few Minster Fudge was cowering like a 6-year old, hiding under his desk and praying to whatever god would listen to save him.

Harry looked at the door for a few moments, and, after seeing that Fudge was too scared to face the music, did what he thought best, and fun in a sadistic sort of way. But in Harry's mind, he deserved it.

Suddenly Fudge was pulled inexorably from under the desk, and pulled roughly, his knees scraping the cold floor. Harry didn't bother opening the door as Fudge was thrown through it. He landed in a heap at Harry's feet.

"Why Mr. Potter! How good to see you." Fudge said sweetly, which was inappropriate for a man lying in a dusty, slightly injured heap in front of a very pissed off wizard.

"Cut the crap Fudge! What the hell is this about me being dead and you and me being friends!" Harry said, looking livid. "You personally arrested me, and oversaw my trial! You gleefully locked me in Azkaban, stacking the odds against me! You're the reason that we were losing the war! You're so incompetent that you should have been kicked out of office the second you refused to believe Albus Dumbledore!"

Fudge looked completely cowed, and back away, sputtering and trying desperately to recover his political image. However, it would be difficult for an already less than popular Minister to over rule the large crowd of witnesses that now gathered at the Ministry, including several reporters.

"You're as dangerous as Voldemort with your completely inept administration! You're incompetence cost us a year of preparations! Thanks to you, any chance of allying with the Giants or keeping the Death Eaters in Azkaban was lost! And you are the one solely responsible!

"Your former Under Secretary, Dolores Umbridge tried to kill me by loosing Dementors at Privet Drive! And then you tried to expel me for defending myself!"

Harry was pissed. Every last bitter feeling against the Ministry erupted out of him, and it was only through sheer force of will that his magic hadn't released itself in a fury and annihilated most of the Ministry.

The reporters were writing their stories gleefully, knowing that this was their chance to get Fudge, who had been controlling their stories, out of office.

"And you have the nerve to say we were FRIENDS!" Harry continued, and Fudge was stumbling back, trying to get out of Harry's sight.

"You refused to give me Veritaserum, when suggested by a neutral party! And don't give me any uncertainty about the neutrality of the party in question bull, Fudge. Let me review to you mine and Severus Snape, the neutral party in question's history. Let me think. HE BLOODY HATED MY FATHER! WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS BLEEDIN HOLY WOULD SOMEONE WHO HATED ME BECAUSE OF MY FATHER SUGGEST VERITASERUM UNLESS THERE WAS DOUBT!"

Harry paused for a moment, regaining his breath after reaming Fudge, preparing himself for another assault. Fudge attempted to back away, stumbling, eyes widening in fear. It was possible that he may have wet himself.

"If you had any conscience at all, you'd have resigned due to SHEER STUPIDITY!

"And then you have the nerve to say that you are running to make sure that a tragedy like MINE ever happens again! You're the one who had two innocent Azkaban prisoners convicted under your office!

"You refused to believe Sirius Black innocent, even though Dumbledore and myself, along with many other known Light supporters had vouched that the Potters had switched Secret-Keepers!

"Did it ever occur to you that if Sirius Black had betrayed my parents, I'd be the first one to convict him!

"NO! And why is that! Because your so convinced that you're right that you'd let innocents suffer to keep yourself in office!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Arthur Weasley looked on at the scene with grim satisfaction. He was glad to see that Fudge's incompetence was finally being revealed to the public. It saddened him though, to see this young man refer to his imprisonment in Azkaban, bringing back the memories of the following years. His head moved down, in remembrance.

He was ashamed of his actions those three years. He had hated an innocent boy, a boy he had watched grow for nearly 5 years, and should have judged his character better. How could he turn on Harry? He owed Harry his life! If it wasn't for that young man, he'd have lost his life, and never lived to see the end of Voldemort.

Looking back up at the scene in front of him, he looked at Harry, trying to gauge what he was right now, where he stood. He could see that Harry was doing what he thought best, not hurting Fudge, but trying to help the Wizarding World by removing an incompetent Minister from office.

_Even after everything, he still tries to help people. Even though he doesn't know it himself. _Arthur thought proudly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You dare say that I would want you in office! I've wanted you out of office since my second year in Hogwarts, when you wrongfully put Rubeus Hagrid, who you believed I killed, in Azkaban!" Harry continued, his rant slowing down to a cold voice with a glare that could have melted diamond.

"Now I'm telling you this now Fudge. If you even try and twist what I say today, I swear I'll destroy your reputation so badly you won't get a job. Ever." Harry said evenly but coldly. With that threat, he turned and moved to walk through the door.

Harry turned with his head down, trying to clear his head of the light-headedness that came from barely breathing and yelling at the top of his lungs. Suddenly he was aware of the slightly afraid looks from a large crowd.

'Good.' He thought. 'All the better to make sure Fudge can't crawl his way out of this hole.'

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry's keen hearing and magical senses picked up the distinct sounds of Floo, and Harry sensed the familiar, if unwelcome, presence of Dumbledore's unmistakable aura, along with one werewolf, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry glared at the crowd, and they parted quickly, and Harry walked briskly, hoping to avoid seeing any of them, but would not look as if there was anything wrong, to keep his appearances up. But a melodic voice stopped him cold. "Harry?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Damn._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry turned slowly, reluctantly, towards the owner of the voice, and her companions all of whom gaped at him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry scanned the crowd quickly, noting Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore, Remus, Mr. Weasley, and _Ginny_. Harry glared at them all, and they winced noticeably, but didn't flee like regular people would have in the face of a pissed off, and reportedly insane wizard.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Remus looked like he desperately wanted to say something to Harry, but he couldn't seem to find his voice. Harry decided to ignore the others, especially Ginny.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry decided to deliver Sirius and his Dad's last wishes, and stalked right up to Remus, who shook visibly with each step. Harry was taller than Remus by a few inches, but they stared at each other, Harry's green eyes glaring into Remus' slightly afraid grey eyes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Suddenly, Harry punched Remus in the face, hard. He fell to the floor, his nose pouring blood, probably broken, Harry thought with satisfaction. "That was from my dad and Sirius." Harry said coldly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Remus looked into Harry's eyes and saw truth, and could do nothing but turn his head down and he released a strangled sob. Harry looked away, and spun on his heel, intent on leaving the Ministry before someone died, or got seriously injured. Of course, Weasley thinking seemed to be intent on throwing themselves to the lions as Ginny and Ron threw themselves at him, grabbing his black robes, trying to pull him back.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ A single snap of his head, a death glare, and a small raw force of magic knocked the Weasley siblings back, landing unceremoniously on their backs. "Don't touch me." Harry said coldly, his voice threatening to erupt into a rage.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry looked them over, noting the fear and awe in Hermione's eyes, Mr. Weasley wasn't looking at him, trying to help his children off the floor, Ron looked at Harry with pleading his eyes, and Ginny echoed his expression with a hint of longing, Dumbledore looked at Harry, his blue eyes without their usual twinkle, and Remus struggled to look Harry in the eye.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Without a word, Harry stalked out of the Ministry.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ To their credit, no Aurors were foolish enough to try and stop him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry Apparated with a pop back into the Marauder's Castle, in the same foul mood as he left. His mood was less volatile, but still enough that anyone foolish enough to say anything to him would probably end up dead, or at least in a very deep coma.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Luckily, the only living creature currently in the castle besides the owls in the owlery was Dobby, who was smart enough to stay away, probably cleaning another part of the castle. Harry decided he needed to vent some of his frustration out, so he walked into an empty hall, and conjured up several tables, chairs, and beds. Then he started destroying them.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ After about the fifth table and several chairs and beds, Harry stopped. "DAMN THEM! WHO THE BLOODY HELL DO THEY THINK THEY ARE!" He roared, slamming his fist into the wall. It bled a little, but Harry ignored it. That turned out to be a mistake, as the pain caught up with him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ After a minute of non-stop swearing and shaking his hand, Harry stopped. He looked around the demolished hall, and started trying to calm himself down.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He remembered Ginny's offer to meet him in the Leaky Cauldron in two days, at noon. He contemplated it. On the one hand, he needed to move on, and this could provide some closure.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ On the other hand, it could prove to be a disaster, setting him off and possibly destroying a large portion of the Leaky Cauldron, and possibly Diagon Alley.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Win-Win situation then. _Harry thought with a grin.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He summoned a parchment, quill, and ink. He wrote one word.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Fine. _


	9. A Conversation

Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling does. I own some made up spells and OC's.

Chapter 8 A Conversation

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny Weasley was sitting on her bed in the Burrow, trying not to think about how furious Harry looked, how hurt he looked, how- _Damnit. I keep thinking about it. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ She wanted desperately for Harry to reply, and she had hopes he would. She knew him better that most people, perhaps even more than Ron and Hermione. Of course, thinking that brought back memories of the trial, which brought back how badly she had hurt Harry, which brought her back to her reply.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Yippe! What a nice circle of painful thoughts I have._ She thought sarcastically.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It was hard for Ginny, more than anyone. She had no one, not really. Everything always reminded her of Harry, and it never stopped hurting her. She could look at her favorite tree and remember how Harry and her snuggled beneath it, or how much Harry tasted like chocolate, or- _This must be my torture. To constantly remember Harry and be unable to have him. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It was far worse than the years she spent pining after him, before she gave up, before Harry noticed her. Because now she had had him, and then she lost him. _Whoever said that it was better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all can bugger off. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny's thoughts were interrupted by a brown post owl flying to her window. Her heart leapt at the sight. Was it Harry? Could he possibly accept her invitation?

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ She took the small note shakily, and read the single word in Harry's unmistakable scrawl, that brought both joy and terror to her heart.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Fine._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry Potter sat, hooded and cloaked, in the Leaky Cauldron, his emerald eyes searching for the telltale fiery red hair of the youngest Weasley. He was sitting in a private corner, given to him quickly by Tom, the innkeeper. One look into his emerald eyes was enough to grant him a private parlor, complete with the small lunch waiting for him. Finally, the clock struck noon, and the door opened.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry couldn't hold back a small gasp as he looked at her. She was breathtaking, as always. She was the one thing in his life that still affected him in the same way as it did prior Azkaban. Her red hair was free and long, covering her ears and parts of her face, her slender body encased in a pretty sundress, her big brown eyes looking for him. Their eyes met, and the electricity of it sent shivers down both their backs. She made her way over to him, smiling faintly. It took a huge effort for him not to smile back.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ She opened her mouth to greet him, but he silenced her with a pleading look. "Not here." He said neutrally. "Tom has a private parlor upstairs with a lunch."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny nodded, taking in the fact that he got her lunch, when she invited him. They proceeded up the stairs in silence, with Ginny trying to study Harry, to see how he was. She had made a habit of this throughout her early Hogwarts years, and could read him better than even Hermione. Of course, it didn't help her during the trial. Somehow, everything always led back to that trial.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He was closed, guarded, even more so than the summer before sixth year, before 'it' happened. But Ginny could feel his soul, feel its pain, and feel its loneliness.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Finally, they entered the private parlor, and as Harry closed the door, Ginny turned towards him. "Harry." She whispered, "It's so good to see you. I missed you."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry looked at her, but said nothing, moving to sit in the wooden chair. She wasn't lying. Harry knew who was lying to him all the time, considering how advanced he was in Legilimency. He motioned her to sit.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ She sat, and picked up a biscuit, and ate it quickly. Harry watched her, studying her, both with his eyes and his Legilimency. Turmoil, grief, and, _love, _were etched inside of her, not bothering to hide. He loved her once, and maybe he did still, he acknowledged that fact at least. But he would not show it. He would only be hurt again. And if he was hurt again, then people would die. _Painfully_.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I suppose it's good to see you too." Harry said gruffly, deciding to tell the truth, before turning away to avoid looking at her eyes. He picked up a cup of steaming tea, and drank it slowly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny smiled, happy that he at least acknowledged the greeting, and reciprocated. Maybe there was hope for the both of them yet.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry put down the drained cup of tea. "So how is everyone?" He asked, curious to know how his innocence affected everyone, no matter how much he severely disliked them, hate being far too strong a word. He didn't hate them, he couldn't really do that, not without risking the dark part of him overwhelming him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Good. Ron and Hermione are married. It was a good wedding." Ginny said, smiling at the memories.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry raised an eyebrow. "Ron and Hermione got married huh? They must bicker either more or less then."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "The bickering is far worse now. Even during the wedding, they were bickering. But when they said their vows…" Ginny said the last part in a half-whisper, reverently, wishing feverently that Harry and her were married.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I can imagine." Harry said, both to them bickering at their own wedding and the look they gave each other when they said their vows. He had seen it so many times in so many people. He almost wished he could have been there, to share that moment with them. Of course, he also wished Azkaban had never happened, but you can't change the past. _Well, you could,_ Harry thought, _But that would require a lot of magic and illegal and dangerous time travel, risking paradoxes._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry would never change the past, not just because he couldn't, but because it was probably better this way. Voldemort was gone, and nearly everyone he knew was still alive. He remembered Hagrid, Percy, Sirius, Cedric, Tonks, and the other's who had died in the fight against Voldemort, and paid his respects again, as he did nearly every day.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny looked at Harry, noticing he was lost in thought. She had seen that look so many times on his face, and she had been the one to bring him out of it. Harry told her that that took guts for her to stand up to him. She didn't know if she could risk something like that anymore, not when they didn't even have a friendship at this stage. "Harry?" She finally asked, daring to break the silence.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "What? Oh, sorry. Just lost in thought." Harry said.ྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "About what?" She asked, surprised by her daring.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "About the war, Azkaban, and those who died. What I think about most of the time." Harry joked, but it was a deadly serious tone.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "That's not funny." Ginny said just a seriously.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I know." He said, looking away.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-" Ginny began, but Harry cut her off.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Don't we have something to discuss?" He said abruptly, coldly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ All the familiarity and feelings Ginny sparked in him was gone now, replaced by an icy mask. Harry had forgotten about what had happened to him, the dark times, the insanity that plagued him for a year, because of a slip of a girl. _But Ginny is not a slip of a girl, _A voice inside of him commented. It was true. She was a strong woman, and a pretty one too. But it was back to business now. The past was over, and he needed some closure about it.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Right." Ginny said coolly, but inside she was hurting. The familiarity and calm air they had around each other was gone. For those brief moments, she felt as though she was still a fifth year, still Harry Potter's girlfriend, instead of the girl who broke his heart.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry. I'm sorry. That's the first thing I should say, above anything else." Ginny began, keeping up the calm, cool façade. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you, like I promised I would be."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry remembered that night all to well. A bittersweet memory that brought him and Ginny closer.

--Flashaback--

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry stood in a circle of trees outside the Burrow. During dinner, Ron had brought up mention Harry's Firebolt, which prompted him to remember Sirius. He had left early, and ran from the Burrow, as if he could run from all the pain and guilt that threatened to overwhelm him. He finally made it to a small clearing outside of the Burrow, and he found himself alone. A feeling that killed and comforted him. He craved to be alone part of the time, yet when he was alone, he craved comfort. The comfort that a mother provided.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry's head whipped around, his wand pointed at the intruder, who turned out to be the youngest Weasley. "Ginny! Don't scare me like that!" He said, exasperated. He remembered the tears threatening to pour from his face and turned away quickly. For some reason, he didn't want her to see him break down like this.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry, Ron wasn't thinking-" Ginny began, but Harry wasn't in the mood to talk.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yeah. He wasn't. That's great. Now _leave_." Harry said rudely.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ At this, Ginny's eyes flashed dangerously and Harry knew he had made a mistake. At the same time though, he couldn't help but notice how pretty she looked like that. _Maybe that's why dad made mum mad. _Harry thought, before all thoughts of his parents were banished by Ginny stalking close to him, reminding Harry of how he saw his mother in the Pensieve, walking towards his dad.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Now you listen here Harry James Potter. You will not take that tone with me." Ginny said evenly, but it was not a request, but a demand.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry opened his mouth to retort, surprise by her audacity, but Ginny cut him off again.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I don't care how badly you feel, but it doesn't help if you make everyone else sad. Mum and Ron were just trying to help. Now you march back in there and apologize!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "YOU'RE RIGHT! NO ONE BLOODY CARE'S HOW I FEEL! I'M JUST HARRY BLEEDIN POTTER! BOY-WHO-LIVED!" Harry yelled back, furious. "It's always, oh, Harry can deal with it. He's a strong boy! He's already lost his parents and godfather, but he should feel happy all the frickin' time!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry paused for a moment, regaining his breath before loosing his tirade again. "I JUST WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE FOR A WHILE, ALRIGHT! I CAN'T EVEN GET THAT! Jesus Ginny, I know they're trying to help but I don't want them too! I don't even want to be here! You're all in danger because of me! And if you guys died…" Harry whispered the last part softly, almost to himself. "I wouldn't know how to go on."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny's anger faded at how lost and alone Harry looked at that moment. She realized she was seeing the true Harry Potter. Not the brave hero, the Boy-Who-Lived, but a lost little boy who was alone. "Harry…" She said, bringing his attention back to her, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. But it's just that we're all trying to help you Harry, but you won't let us in!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Well maybe I don't want anyone to get close to me! Everyone who cares about me dies and leaves me alone!" As Harry finished his retort, he finally broke down and fell to his knees, sobbing violently. "They always leave me alone."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It brought Harry back to his childhood, and how alone he felt. He never had any friends, his aunt and uncle never cared about him or comforted him, and his cousin bullied him. Harry was always alone, even in a large crowd, he was isolated. Going to Hogwarts only intensified it, now that he knew that he was a marked man, destined to kill or be killed.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Suddenly Harry was aware of two arms encircling him and pulling him into a fierce hug, and the sweet scent of apple blossoms surrounding him, calming him. "It's alright Harry," Ginny whispered soothingly, "It's alright. I'm here. I will never leave you alone. You have all of us now. We won't leave you alone. I'll never leave you alone. I promise."

--End Flashback--

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ After that moment, Harry and Ginny were almost inseparable. In a few days they were going out, and Harry couldn't have been happier. He felt the weight of the world a little less overwhelming, and he was finally starting to heal. Then Azkaban happened.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yeah, I remember." Harry said coldly. "I remember it perfectly. I think you were the one who forgot."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I did forget. I'm so sorry Harry. I know I'll never be able to make it up to you." Ginny said quietly, her head down, tears threatening to fall from her eyes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You're right. But I didn't come here for excuses or so that you could make it up to me, which you could never do for me. I came here for some closure, to hear why you betrayed me." Harry said, his mask threatening to fall with the tears in Ginny's eyes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You're right, of course." Ginny said briskly, trying to match Harry's businesslike manner, and managing it just barely.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "So. Let's here it." Harry said quietly. He didn't know if he was ready for this. But like everything in life, he would meet it head on, without fear.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry, I suppose the biggest reason I didn't believe you was Percy." Ginny said quietly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry remembered the day Percy returned to the Weasley family, how haggard and pitiful he looked, how much he longed for his family. The Weasleys reunited. Before Percy was murdered. Still, the family had been close to Percy, so maybe they were so blinded by their grief about their newly returned prodigal son.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I see. I should have seen this earlier." Harry said in the same tone, finally comprehending their reasoning. "You are close to all of your brothers, right?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yeah. But me and Percy…" Ginny said, her voice almost breaking. She missed her older brother. "Percy always defended me from the twins and Ron after Bill and Charlie left. Even though I learned to do it myself, me and him were close."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I suppose I understand." Harry said evenly. "People do irrational things when one is blinded by grief."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny knew what he was talking about. The use of the Cruciatus Curse on Bellatrix Lestrange after she had killed Sirius. He had told her first, and had nearly broken down because of it.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "That's no excuse though." Ginny said, sorrow breaking her calm façade.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You're right. But I believe we already discussed that, Ginny." Harry said calmly, fighting the raging storm of emotions inside of him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Right." Ginny said, resisting the urge to rub her eyes, settling on blinking. "I just wanted you to know that that was the biggest reason. Make no mistake, I cared a lot about Hagrid too. He was a good man, and one of the few people who listened and talked with me for a long time." She said with a large amount of conviction in her eyes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry blinked, remembering the first time he met Hagrid, how he rescued him from the Dursleys, stood up for him, and stood by him steadfastly. "He was my first friend." Harry said quietly, so quietly Ginny was unnerved by it. "I never met anyone as nice as him before that day. He was my first friend, and the first person to even give me a birthday present. I'll never forget him. Good man. No. Great man."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny smiled. Harry always had a penchant for speeches sometimes. The D.A. loved it. "That he was." Ginny said quietly. She raised her tea in a silent salute, and Harry followed suit.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The silence descended upon them again, no longer the comfortable, friendly silence that once existed between them, but a cold, uncomfortable silence that felt almost smothering.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "What about Hermione?" Harry said this so quietly that Ginny barely caught it. "Why didn't she believe me?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "She confided in me that she had doubts, but Ron and Dumbledore convinced her. She was scared of losing Ron, so she believed you did it." Ginny said, hating Hermione, her best friend, for doing that to Harry, even though she could do no better.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I see. Friends to the end, huh." Harry said quietly, reliving all the memories the Trio, as they were known, had had throughout their first five Hogwart's years.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He remembered the oaths given to him by Ron, Hermione, Neville, Luna, and Ginny one night, after another round of attacks on the Wizarding World. He had been extremely depressed, and wanted to cut off ties with them, but none of them would let him. 'We'll follow you to hell and back Harry.' Ron had said forcefully, and the other's nodded along with him feverently, conviction etched on each of their features, even the normally dreamy Luna.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Do you remember another promise you, Ron, and the others made to me?" Harry said coolly. "What was it? We'll follow you to hell and back? Well, I went to hell, but I don't think I was followed." His voice dripped with sarcasm as he said the last part.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny remembered that day all too well as she winced at his tone. "No, we didn't." She affirmed softly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "How is Lovegood and Longbottom, anyway?" Harry said casually. He was actually curious about the newer additions to the former group.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny looked up, startled at the question. "They're married now, to each other. Luna's the editor of the Quibbler, and Neville is the head Auror."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Neville? Head Auror?" Harry chuckled. He knew Neville was a tough fighter and a brave man, but how did he pass Potions! "How did he get through Potions?" He joked.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I think he learned the connection between Potions and Herbology." Ginny said, smiling again. He was back to his old self for another moment, and she savored every part of it.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "They tied to knot huh…" Harry said, smiling at the thought of the two of them married. Such an odd couple. But every couple was different, he supposed.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yeah. Another great, if strange wedding." Ginny said, wishing that she and Harry, the last of their little group, had gotten married.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I'll bet." Harry said, a half-smile playing on his lips. He wondered exactly _what_Luna had done at her wedding. Luna wasn't crazy, just different, as her friends knew. She loved to be her own person, and stand out in the crowd.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ And then suddenly Harry shook himself from his thoughts, and was business again. "Is that it?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny was slightly thrown by the change in topic, but being best friends with Luna Lovegood had given her quite a knack for the random changes. "I suppose so…" Ginny said, holding back the regret in her voice.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "This has been… nice." Harry admitted. _Damn that girl._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Maybe we can talk again some time?" Ginny asked hopefully.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Maybe." Harry said guardedly. "And Ginny?" He added.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yes Harry?" She asked cautiously, ignoring the curious euphoria she was getting from the breakthroughs with Harry today.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Don't tell_anyone_ about this." Harry said calmly, but the unsaid threat was there. Tell anyone, and you'll never hear from me again.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I won't Harry, but you know Hermione. She'll figure it out." Ginny pleaded, knowing that Harry would disappear so fast she would never be able to explain if that happened.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You have a point. Fine. Tell her about it if, and only _if_, she knows." Harry said, with a note of finality.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Okay Harry." She said quietly, looking down.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ As he neared the door, he turned back to look at her. She looked up at that moment, and could see embarrassment, and uncertainty in his emerald eyes. "Ginny?" Harry asked.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yes Harry?" She repeated, curious to know what made him so uncertain.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Thanks."


	10. Face the Darkness

Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling does.

Chapter 9 Face the Darkness

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry Potter sat at his favorite chair in front of the fireplace at the Marauder's Castle three days after the meeting with Ginny. He reviewed the meeting over and over in his head, trying to make some sense of what happened. Where had his anger gone? Was Ginny really that close to his heart that he could forget?

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _No. Never Forget. _Harry thought, knowing that, for better or worse, that dark chapter of his life had contributed the most to creating the young man he was today. All the trouble, the weight of the world, and he hadn't broken. He would not break. Azkaban had proven that.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry got up, briefly wondering where Dobby was. Normally the energetic house-elf was around every few hours, but he had hardly been seen today. No matter.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry decided to explore more of the castle. There was still so much he hadn't seen, so many memories from his parents that he hadn't found.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He wandered towards the eastern half of the castle, the side he farthest from his normal haunts. He briefly wondered if there was some version of the Marauder's map here as well, to locate people inside the castle, and tell Harry where everything was.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He smiled, remembering all that he had found over the past few days. So many pictures of his parents, the Marauders, and even some of Harry. There was a strange room that was completely blank, until Harry figured out that it had the same password as the Marauder's map. It turned out to be a wonderful room, full of pranking items, ideas, and books even.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _The twins would have killed to find that room._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Thoughts like that had drifted in and out of Harry's head more and more, especially after his meeting with Ginny. The pangs of betrayal were dull throbs now, replace by an aching loneliness that Harry had only known at the Dursleys, before and sometimes after he had learned he was a wizard.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It was so lonely in this castle with no one but Dobby to talk to. He wanted company, yet fear it at the same time. Feared the rejection, the betrayal, the pain and anguish that could happen. The trust that had come so hard after the Dursleys, with, well, anyone, was gone now. He had no reason to believe in anyone anymore.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry had pondered briefly about finding a girlfriend, but promptly dismissed it. There were far too many problems. What woman could possibly handle the media attention, but love Harry for Harry, not for his fame and power?

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ A name popped up in Harry's head, but he shoved it down, telling it to bugger off.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Another problem was that the women in his life were few and far that he was close too, and the two of the three largest young women in his life were married, and the third… she already had a shot.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Maybe she deserves a second chance. She was young. _A voice chirped.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _I thought all my voices were gone…_ Harry chuckled at his inside joke, strolling through the deserted hallway.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Anyhow, how can I hope to sustain a relationship when I can't even deal with my own feelings? _Harry asked himself. There was no answer.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry had detached himself from his feelings, and he had merely run away from them. He had never been good with his feelings. Facing them would be a challenge, far more than his duel with Voldemort, but at least he wouldn't be unconscious for days after it.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry brought his thoughts back to earth as he scanned the hallway. It seemed plain enough, with only one door at the end of it. This was one long hallway though, if he had been walking along it for so long.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry kept walking, but soon he noticed something odd. The door stayed at exactly the same place, and for some reason, Harry couldn't move any closer, no matter how much he walked. _Wait a tick…_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry opened his magical Sight, the ability to see into the Aura's of magic itself. He spotted a large series of complicated charms that would have kept him confounded and unable to move, but it would seem like he was moving. Definitely a Marauder brand prank.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry felt a smile tug at his features, and muttered, "Finite Incantem." It was a shame to dispel such good magic, but he didn't want to be stuck in the same place all day.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Suddenly the hallway became far smaller, and the door was only ten feet away. "There we go." Harry said, a faint smile on his face and a touch of humor in his voice.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He took a few powerful strides towards the door, and opened it to reveal a small room that seemed mildly interesting, with a few bookshelves and pictures, and a walk-in closet. He looked into the drawers first, and his heart nearly stopped at the name on the book.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Lily Potter.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry looked at the book, not moving for an untold amount of time. He just looked at the book like a devoted Catholic would look at the tomb of St. Peter himself. He had found the Holy Grail of his life. A memoir of his parents. His mother. The woman who died so he could live.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Finally, he moved to pick up the book carefully, but stopped short. He was in the Marauder's home base. He needed to be sure there was nothing that would hex him. He scanned it, and saw he was correct. Several hexes and locking charms were in place, and would have triggered. Disabling them would also trigger them. This would be a much more complicated procedure.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry focused his aura to match Lily's, which was simpler than changing it to someone who was not related to him. It was a trick to pass through wards that only allowed certain people through.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He touched the diary, still holding his aura similar enough to Lily's to open it. To his relief, the charms and hexes shut down once it was open. He hated having to keep his aura changed for long periods of time.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He read the first passage with interest.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Dear Diary,_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Hi! My name is Lily Marie Evans! I just turned eleven and mum gave me this diary! I got this really weird letter from an owl! Can you believe it! An OWL! _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _It says that I'm a witch and that I'm invited to go to a school called Hogwarts! Mum and Dad didn't believe it, and I was skeptic, but this one lady came over. She called herself Professor McGonogall and she said that she was a witch too! She conjured up some tea and turned herself into a cat!_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _I can't wait to go to my new school!_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Petunia, that's my older sister, was mean though. She started calling me a freak. It hurt because we were close when we were younger, but mum said she was just jealous. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Well, that's all for now!_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry smiled at the energetic and lively writing of his mother. It was like he expected his eleven-year old mother to write. It also gave him some insights about Aunt Petunia. She was obviously mean and spiteful to his mother, but jealous? He never considered the option. _Though it does it explain she remembers all that magical stuff. Because she wanted to be a part of the wizarding world. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Smiling, he sat down to immerse himself in memories of the past.ྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny had successfully evaded suspicions from every member of her family, save one. Hermione had tried to corner her a few times, but each time she managed to get saved by a student, another teacher, or by a verifiable excuse. Of course, everyone's luck run's out eventually, especially when you're up against the mind of Hermione Jane Granger.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny was currently lying in her room, heart just a little less heavy with how the meeting with Harry went. It went good in her eye; she had expected to handle the full-out Harry Potter temper, backed by several years in Azkaban. This time, she didn't have the right corner, and couldn't bring Harry out of it. It wasn't her place anymore.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry was cold, closed, but there were moments, just, moments, when his eyes regained some of their sparkle, their twinkle, and she felt at peace.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Ginny?" A voice asked. "Are you in there?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yeah!" Ginny asked, before regretting the much more cheerful tone she used. That could bring suspicions up from anyone.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The door opened to reveal the one person Ginny had been trying to avoid for the past few days. Hermione.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Hey Hermione!" Ginny cried happily, trying to disguise the worry in her voice.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Hello Ginny." Hermione said, hugging her. "I thought I'd stop by the Burrow today, to see my family!" Hermione added for benefit, before moving straight in for the kill.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Now, what's up with you avoiding me these past few days?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "What do you mean?" Ginny asked, trying to play the ignorance card. _That wouldn't work!_ She scolded herself, _Hermione's too smart!_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Oh, I think you do." Hermione said, fixing her with her piercing gaze that sent first years packing. "It has something to do with that _lunch_ in the Leaky Cauldron, doesn't it?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Why would me having lunch with Ha-myself make me want to avoid you?" _Damn_, she thought, _I'm already slipping!_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "With Hamyself? Who's that?" Hermione asked. _Sharp as a tack as always._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I said myself." Ginny said, getting desperate. The problem was, hardly anyone ever came into her room at the Burrow when it was packed, and with everyone else busy or out at the moment, chances were slim. _Little chance of interruption, especially after lunch, _Ginny thought despairingly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Did you? I'm sorry, I must have heard wrong." Hermione chuckled, and looked slightly abashed. _Damn she's a good actress._ "Okay, so how was lunch? Anyone interesting show up?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny could sense a trap when it came. It was a sense developed around Fred and George, honed in battle. And she could definitely see the warning signs.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ A noise caught Harry from his reading, and he jerked his head up, figuring it was Dobby. But Dobby wasn't there. Harry looked back down, certain he had imagined the sound.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ After a few more entries, another sound. Harry looked up, and out of the corner of his eye, the closet shook ever so slightly, but to Harry's eyes, it still moved.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Suddenly, the door to the closet began shaking violently. He opened his eyes to the Sight, and found a dark aura inside of the closet.ྭ _What the hell? A Dark Creature? _ྭHarry thought as me moved towards it, drawing his wand. _Probably a Boggart._ _Best be on guard. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry opened the door, wand raised, ready for anything, except of course, for what was already there.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Remus Lupin jumped out of the closet. "What the hell! How the bloody hell did you get here, Lupin!" Harry demanded, but Lupin didn't respond, but his face twisted into a terrifyingly familiar visage. The face of hatred and betrayal he wore the day of Harry's trial.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry backed away, dreading whatever would come from Lupin's mouth as he opened it. "You scum!" Lupin snarled, "You disgust me! You're nothing but a worthless _traitor_!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ron and Hermione came out next; wearing the faces they had at the trial on as well. "Traitor!" Hermione cried, slapping him again, just like before.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry backed away, holding his jaw, crying, "No! Please! I didn't kill them! I didn't!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "LIAR!" They cried in unison, and Ron delivered a punch to his jaw, just as before. Harry stumbled, tears falling from his eyes at last, the walls that held him up throughout his imprisonment and subsequent freedom finally breaking, the torrent of emotions drowning any response except for pleading cries.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry felt exactly the way he did on the day of the trial, alone, betrayed, and friendless, against a world that hated him. He knew that this was the feeling Sirius had when he broke from Azkaban, but the betrayal Harry had suffered was far worse.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Albus Dumbledore strode out of the closet next, his face terrifying with it's rage and hatred, so much that Harry, stronger than Dumbledore in many instances, except when he's having an emotional breakdown.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "BETRAYER! YOU HAVE BETRAYED US HARRY!" Dumbledore thundered, and Harry could have sworn on Godric's Sword that the room shook with his voice.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I DIDN'T! I SWEAR!" Harry cried fearfully, shrinking into a corner.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ More and more faces. Tonks. Moody. Mrs. Weasley. Mr. Weasley. Bill. Charlie. The twins. All of them chorusing one thing. "BETRAYER!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ With each new face, Harry's walls crumbled even more, every wall shielding his pain let loose a torrent that left him crippled, unable to do anything other than try to protest, which was drowned out by their cries of outrage.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ New faces arrived. Sirius. He stood there, looking impassive, eyes downcast Harry crawled towards Sirius, thinking, _He'll stand by me. Like always!_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ As Harry reached out for Sirius, he jerked back violently from Harry, screeching, "TRAITOR!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry's eyes widened in shock, the tears falling ever faster, like a tide of misery drowning his visage. "Sirius! I DIDN'T DO IT! I DIDN'T DO IT!" He cried, mustering his strength for another plea.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "LIAR! TRAITOR! JUST LIKE WORMTAIL!" Sirius roared, advancing on Harry, who cowered in fear, but kept protesting, "NO! I DIDN'T!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "LIAR!" The entire room chorused in rage, advancing on him, cornering him. Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived-To-Defeat-He-Who-Is-Dead, the most powerful wizard in the world, Heir of Gryffindor, was reduced to a quivering heap on the floor.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Two more faces appeared, the faces that Harry had longed to see, to touch, to hear from in so long. The Potters, Lily and James.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Mum? Dad?" Harry asked fearfully, but still hopeful for salvation.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Their faces twisted into similar expressions of hatred, and Harry shrank even further back from them. "You disgust us! You are a disgrace to the Potter name!" James snarled hatefully.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I cannot believe I died for this scum. I should have let you die, or killed you myself when you were born!" Lily screeched, and Harry now understood the true similarities between his mother and Aunt Petunia in their rages.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Please… I'm… sorry… I didn't… I didn't…" Harry cried pitifully, but none of the apparitions took notice.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "YOU BETRAYED US HARRY!" The room chorused again, and Harry shrunk even further down into his own depression.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The final face emerged from the closet, the face Harry had known would come, would taunt him, the face that would utterly destroy him. "You… liar! I can't believe I ever loved you!" Ginny Weasley cried hatefully.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Gin… I didn't… I would never…" Harry cried, the tears almost blinding him to the hateful faces in front of him, but he could still feel their hateful glares on him, singing his soul, burning it alive, drowning it in sorrow and despair.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "LIAR!" Ginny screeched.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Please…no…I… love…you…" Harry cried pitifully, before falling to the floor, sobbing pitifully, before finally passing out with the stress and exhaustion of the last few minutes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "What do you mean, Mione?" Ginny said, still trying to act as casual as possible.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "All right Gin. Game's over." Hermione said, dropping the act and going straight for the kill. "I know you and Harry met in the Leaky Cauldron."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny looked at the older girl in silence for a few moments, before finally asking hoarsely, "How?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Simple. Number one, you haven't been moping around as much. Number two, I know you quite well Ginny. You would send Harry a letter, and, knowing Harry, he'd answer you and meet you." Hermione said, a look of triumph in her eyes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Alright. I met with him." Ginny admitted softly, as if the words spoken any louder would make it go away. "But you can't tell anyone!" She whispered fiercely.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "But…Fine." Hermione said, knowing that Ginny would tell her nothing if she wanted to tell someone. Besides, she could see the wisdom in Ginny's words.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny nodded at her, and proceeded to silence and lock the room, before coming back to her bed and sitting up on it. "What do you want to know?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Hermione smiled at her. "So, how did it go?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Alright. He seems… better." Ginny said at last.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You mean he's not raging and storming and throwing people around?" Hermione teased gently.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yeah." Ginny said, allowing herself a small chuckle before regretting it. After all, it's not fair to laugh when you're the one causing the damage.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Sorry." Hermione said softly, knowing just how difficult things were for Ginny.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny shook her head. "No, it's alright. I have to learn to live with this guilt."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Why?" Hermione asked, not wanting her to get rid of the guilt, so much as why she wanted to live with it.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "To share in Harry's pain. To understand how he felt all throughout the war." Ginny wore an expression that radiated conviction as she said this.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Hermione nodded, seeing the wisdom in the younger woman's words. "So…" She began, and Ginny picked up on it.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Oh, right! So, I offered to meet him in the Leaky Cauldron at noon. Turns out he was already there." Ginny started, and Hermione nodded, taking in the information readily and easily.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Then he took me up to a private parlor where he had lunch waiting, and we talked. Idle chit-chat most of the time, about you and Ron, Luna and Neville, that sort of thing." Ginny said, a slight smile appearing on her face, which Hermione caught and smiled warmly back.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Then, I just told him why I didn't believe him, and he didn't really say much else about it. He didn't tell me anything, but I could tell that he wasn't as angry." Ginny said, a small light of triumph unknowingly twinkling on her chocolate brown eyes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I see. So, are you going to meet him again?" Hermione asked quietly, knowing that this question was what hinged so many hopes onto.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I don't know, Hermione. He thanked me when he left, but I don't know if he'll come back. I hope he will." Ginny said the last part softly, with a mixture of hope and regret in her tone.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry Potter sir! Wake up sir!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry opened one eye, and shut it immediately, wincing at the lights of the room. "Dobby?" Harry croaked.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yes sir, it is Dobby! Is you okay master?" Dobby asked concernedly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Urgh… fine." Harry groaned, picking himself off the bed before falling back onto it with exhaustion. "What happened?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Dobby found master Harry Potter unconscious in the study! Dobby was very concerned for master Harry Potter!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry was beginning to get a headache from Dobby's tone of voice, but still found the clarity to say, "Call me Harry, Dobby. None of that master stuff."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Dobby looked horrified, or at least he would have looked that way if Harry had opened his eyes. "But…"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "No buts Dobby." Harry said, finally picking himself off the bed with all the strength he possessed. "How did I get here?" He asked.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Dobby brought you here maste-Harry." Dobby corrected, still in awe of calling Harry on a first name basis.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Thanks Dobby." Harry said gratefully, while inwardly he cursed himself. _How could I not have seen through the illusion! Is that truly that horrifying for me!_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ But somehow, Harry could tell it really was his greatest fear. Being betrayed again. He would have guessed that it would have been an evil Harry that seemed similar to Voldemort, but being betrayed? It made sense, but Harry could not bring himself to comment upon it.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _I suppose that I shouldn't have kept putting off facing the situation of being betrayed again, or the aftereffects of being betrayed a first time. _Harry mused. _Life seems to have forced me to deal with it. But not yet. I can't do it yet._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry vowed to avoid the study for a long, long time.


	11. Dawn of a New Age

Disclaimer- I own not Harry Potter.

Chapter 10 Dawn of a New Age

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry paced in a large room he had converted into his study, right next to his master bedroom. He liked the place, filled with pictures of his parents and Sirius, with comfortable furniture that was strangely similar to that of the Gryffindor Tower common room. Not that Harry realized it.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Three months after the incident with the Boggart, Harry had explored most of the castle, discovering wondrous treasure troves of memories and objects. Pranking items, notes, old school books, failed Marauders Map prototypes (Harry had a little pang whenever he looked at them), all sorts of treasured memories of his parents and godfather. There was even a massive broom collection room, with many ancient brooms that were better to be collected than flown, and other's that probably were too old to fly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He had left most of the rooms alone, except to give them a through cleaning (The Dursleys had drilled him a habit of cleaning, no matter how much Dobby protested). There was only one room Harry had discovered that was not explored fully. Lily's study. The Boggart room.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry had avoided that area like the plague, cursing his fear. He could not face what was inside that study. He wanted to connect with his mother, but his fear of the Boggart kept him away. _All those times I risked my life, fighting Dark Wizards, evil spirits, werewolves, Dementors, and yet a simple Boggart is what keeps me away from one of the greatest prizes of my life. _Harry mused bitterly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He had matured. He knew that. Slytherin cautiousness, Ravenclaw analytical thinking, and Hufflepuff steadfastness now tempered his Gryffindor bravery. A deadly combination, as Voldemort had learned. He could see exactly what the Boggart was, his greatest fear, though not real, was still enough to terrify him. Any chance of recovering from Azakaban would be lost if he messed up facing the Boggart.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _In a way, _Harry mused; _the Boggart is the last obstacle between forgiveness and me. My fear of betrayal is keeping me distant from them. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry turned towards the window, where a rapid tap-tap-tap was shattering Harry's musings. There was only one consistent owl Harry ever answered, or that came directly to him. The Daily Prophet owl. He didn't read it to listen to the Wizarding World daily comings and goings, but to keep an eye out for suspicious activity and to make sure the Ministry wasn't screwing anything up. So far, the Ministry had been scrambling in the fallout of Harry's 'visit' to the ex-Minister Fudge, who was ousted by the Wizengamot in a rare unanimous vote of no confidence.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The Ministry had been turned into a political battleground, with many actually qualified candidates, unlike the previous Minister. The threat of Harry Potter descending upon them like a vengeful demon kept most of the un-qualified personnel from entering, but there were a few Fudge copycats, who merely wanted power. The actual election would be run by the Wizengamot, and the elected Minister would serve the remainder of Fudge's term, then would be qualified for re-election, to be voted on regularly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry had taken it upon himself to watch over these elections from the shadows, grabbing all the information he could and weighing each candidate. Harry didn't want to intervene, but a bad candidate would mean more trouble down the road, such as more wrongfully imprisoned convicts and unnoticed Dark Lords. _It's better to be safe then sorry, _Harry realized when he first began watching the elections closely.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ However, he had never set foot in the Ministry since his run-in with Fudge, or even outside since his meeting with Ginny. He hadn't been in contact with anyone either, and there were huge stacks of letters in a room that Harry had designated as the mail storage room. There were shelves for Remus, the Weasleys, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, an assorted pile of people Harry had met, and then a nice fire for fanmail.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ However, looking at the headlines, which stated; **_Minister of Magic Elections Today! _**ྭHarry realized that he had a kind of strange obligation to go. No one asked him to, and he probably didn't have the 'official' authority to enter the election or do anything officially, but being the one who had a hand in not only saving the Wizarding World so they could have these elections, but ousting the previous Minister, Harry felt he had a right to be there. _Also, as the Heir of Gryffindor, maybe I have some kind of political power, _Harry mused, wishing he had asked Godric about it._ Although spending three years in training and then the next few days preparing for a battle don't leave time to think about the future._ྭ Harry hated politics, but the alternative was risking other's suffering like him, and dark wizards running amok.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry quickly scribbled a note to Dobby, telling him that he'd be at the Ministry today, and that Harry might not be back until night.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Still_, Harry thought as he summoned his Invisibility cloak, _It's better that I **stay**in the shadows. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry wondered briefly if his former friends would be there as he cast the cloak around himself, and as he prepared himself for an Apparation, he briefly had second thoughts.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Too late now. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry Apparated into one of the closed office spaces in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Department. It was small, and not many people would go in, even if an election weren't taking place. Making sure the cloak was firmly around him, he crept out from the office, using a wandless unlocking charm to open the door. Although charmed against spells like Alohomora, brute magical force can overcome most obstacles, especially a minor locking charm.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry crept down slowly; looking around every now and then to make sure no one was coming right at him. _Now then, _Harry thought to himself, _where is it being held? _Harry removed the folded Daily Prophet in his pocket and opened it to the front page. He quickly scanned the article, his eyes widened and he looked at the paper in surprise._Courtroom Ten?_ Harry said to himself. _Well, that brings back some unpleasant memories. _Flashes from his disastrous fifth year came back to him, from Umbridge and the Dementors, to his trial, to Sirius…

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry shook his head. The old guilt wouldn't bring him down. Not now. He crept towards the courtroom, and saw the magical detectors set up at the entrance. They would see him coming, so it was better to announce himself, at least to the guards. Besides, he could probably scare a few guards into keeping quiet.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He ducked behind a corner as he heard footsteps behind him, and once the steps had passed, he swept off the cloak. Checking to make sure no one could see him, he walked briskly towards the entrance. The two guards on duty looked relaxed, seeing as how there had been little cause for alarm with Voldemort and his Death Eaters dead.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ As Harry strode powerfully towards the entrance, one of the guards moved to stop him and ask for an I.D. "Do you have an I.D.?" The guard asked pompously, clearly thinking Harry was an intern or some rookie reporter going for a scoop.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "No, but I have this." Harry replied, and swept his bangs up, revealing his scar. The guards paled, and immediately stepped away from him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Of course, Mister Potter. Would you like us to show you in?" The guard sputtered.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "No. In fact, if you breathe a word that I was here to anyone, I'll make sure that you get the same treatment as Fudge." Harry snarled. "Understand?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The guards turned even paler, resembling ghosts now. "Of-of-cour-course, Mister Potter." The guard stuttered, opening the door slightly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Good." Harry swept into past the guards, who didn't even turn to look at him. _Excellent._Harry thought, sweeping the cloak over himself and creeping quietly into the room, heading towards a secluded corner of the room.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Thankfully for Harry, no one noticed his quiet entrance, all too busy chatting away, and no one was looking directly at the entrance. The Wizengamot hadn't convened yet, and for that, Harry was grateful. Dumbledore could see through his cloak, and if he showed any signs of surprise when looking at the door, Harry could be spotted. Now all he had to do was hope that Dumbledore didn't look his way all throughout the election.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ A gong went off, and all chatter ceased as the Wizengamot convened. Harry suddenly felt very sick, and felt like he should run away now. It brought back painful memories of his trial.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Flashes, images sped by in his minds eye. Ginny's face during the trial. Ron and Hermione testifying. Remus punching him. Dumbledore's angry eyes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He shook his head, and realized that he had fallen to his knees. He looked up, and the Wizengamot stood, already announce while Harry was distracted, their faces relaxed and hopeful, so different from the day of his trial.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Flash. Angry eyes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry had to shake himself again to rid himself of his disturbing images. He wanted to run, to believe it wasn't time to confront his fears, but in the end, his heart told him to stay. He obeyed it, a feature of himself he hadn't done for quite some time. Listening to his heart was an old habit, but not necessarily a bad one.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He looked around the courtroom, desperate for something to shake him from his troubling thoughts. Instead, he got more of them. A crowd of redheads sat up front. Accompanied by a familiar bushy head of brown hair, and a balding elder man. The Weasleys, Hermione, and Lupin. _Just effing great. _Harry thought to himself, not daring to risk making a sound.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry leaned against the wall, tucking himself neatly into the corner, watching the proceedings. He listened to the first speakers, who were generally crowd pleasers. _Weak. Would never be able to direct the Wizarding World to where it needs to go. _Harry remarked about the first few speakers, dismissing them.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ For a moment, Harry thought about why his opinion even mattered, born from fifteen years with the Dursleys. He wondered why he should give a damn, a thought born from three years in bitterness and loathing in Azakaban. But finally, a clear voice replied to him from inside, _Because you can make a difference. Because this is what Mum, Dad, Sirius, Godric, and everyone else would have wanted. To change the world. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry sighed. _No matter what, no matter that Voldemort is dead, that I've fulfilled the prophecy, that I've paid any debts I owe anyone by killing Voldemort, I still can't stop helping people. Damn my hero-complex. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry looked over at the crowd. They were timid. Afraid of change. It was this uncertainty that kept groups like the Death Eaters alive. Someone needed to take charge. The next few speakers weren't any better. They talked smooth, promised big, and lied between their teeth. Legilimency comes in handy. ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry sighed. This was really disappointing. There were no strong leaders that would step up and take charge, to make change. Dumbledore, loath as Harry was to admit, could do it, but he would never leave Hogwarts. The others on the Wizengamot clearly were divided, unable to come to a decision already.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Without a clear favorite, this could go on for a while. _Harry grumbled internally, as another speaker took the stand.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry mused about the remaining candidates when the slick, oily looking candidate took the podium. He began speaking in an oily, wheedling voice, which automatically annoyed Harry. However, this particular candidate obviously took lessons in 'How-To-Make-Harry-Potter-Pissed-With-You' from Fudge when he began talking.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "The tragedies of the past must be averted. The Dark creatures have gone unchecked during You-Know-Who's reign, and they must be put down, to prevent any more destruction. I am proposing that we continue Madam Umbridge's noble work," Harry could swear he heard several Weasley voices coughing and their standing rose slightly with him, "And stop these half blooded creatures, giants, werewolves, and other creatures that masquerade as normal wizards."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry could see that Lupin was glaring daggers at the man, and Harry felt like doing the same. _This is the perfect example of why Death Eaters went unchecked. _Harry thought to himself. The man looked around, as if looking for a approval, and then continued. As he began talking again, Harry wondered if he could get away with murder.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "We must either put even more laws and restrictions on werewolves and the like. We must insure that none of them ever side with a Dark Wizard again!" The man cried, pumping his fist into the air.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Several members of the crowd cheered, but most remained silent. They remembered Harry's words about Umbridge, and his standing on werewolves and giants.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ As Harry was delegating the merits of sending a wandless Choking Hex or perhaps a nice Pain Curse, the man still continued.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Also, Harry Potter is running unchecked throughout our society. He ousted Cornelius Fudge, a minister who helped us through the second war with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." At this point, Harry wondered if they would convict him if he used a Killing Curse on this guy.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry Potter is a dangerous wizard who must be stopped, lest he come back as Voldemort did! If elected, I would propose a close watch over Potter, and make sure he never manages to escape the Ministry's ever vigilant eye!" At this point, Harry was beyond caring. He wanted to kill this guy, and he would have, had not someone else beat him to it.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ A familiar Bat-Bogey Hex flew through the air, and knocked the candidate down hard as the bogies began attacking him. An even more familiar voice cried out angrily, "SHUT UP!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry watched as Ginny Weasley stood up angrily, looking murderous. Only the combined force of all six of her brothers and Hermione managed to keep Ginny from going to Azakaban for murder with her bare hands, most likely. "Harry's isn't like that! Remember the last time you thought he was a dark wizard? He was innocent, damnit!" Ginny cried out, and her large brown eyes threatened to spill tears.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "He was innocent, and we didn't trust him. Harry would never turn dark! Never! Even if we betrayed him, he didn't turn his back on the Wizarding World. We need to trust him." Ginny pleaded, and the plight of the candidate, now completely forgotten, as all eyes watched the youngest Weasley.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Please. Give him the benefit of the doubt this one time. The all of us, the whole Wizarding World, has betrayed him so many times. Please. Just trust him. If we can't trust Harry, who can we trust?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The crowd seemed moved by Ginny's pleading voice and face, and all those who supported that candidate had just decided to trust Harry.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry shook his head, a small, real smile on his face. He looked up, and saw Dumbledore, and his Legilimency picked up anxiety and unease. Harry could see the problem. Anyone nominated by Dumbledore might be seen as a political puppet, even though everyone should know damn well that Dumbledore didn't want the position.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Is there anyone in the crowd with a nomination?" Dumbledore asked, his normally jovial tone and twinkling eyes serious.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The people in the crowd murmured, obviously conflicted as well.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry resisted a groan that built inside of his throat. _Damnit. What now?_ Harry asked himself, before an idea came into his head. A terrible, awful, horrible, wonderful idea.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I have one." Harry found himself calling out loudly. The entire courtroom seemed to stop and quiet on a sickle, and the Weasleys seemed to freeze, not believing their ears. _They're going to be a hell of a lot more surprised in a few seconds. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Dumbledore's eyes were back at full twinkle as they turned towards his direction. The message in his look was clear. Show yourself.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry threw off his cloak, and the entire room could not have been more surprised if Voldemort came back from the dead to give out early Christmas presents, laughing gaily and sporting a tutu.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Mister Potter!" Madam Bones cried out in surprise, and several witches actually fainted on the spot.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I have a nomination." Harry continued, looking towards Dumbledore, as if asking permission to continue. The imperceptible nod Dumbledore responded with was enough.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "How did you get in here!" One wizard on the Wizengamot demanded. Several people, including the Weasleys and Lupin snapped their heads towards the man with simultaneous death glares.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I walked in." Harry said simply, smirking at the man.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "What right do you have to be here!" Another man called out. All death glares were retargeted towards him, and he shrank back.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Well, let's see." Harry said dryly. "I saved all of your bloody arses by killing old Moldiewart, you all threw me in Azakaban," nearly the entire crowd winced, "but if that's not enough, I could go on."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The crowd now glared at the man, who shrank against the assault. He shook his head feverently, and left the room in a hurry.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Mr. Potter, you had a nomination?" Dumbledore said benignly, smiling down on him. Much as Harry disliked Dumbledore at the moment, it wasn't the time to deliver a stinging rebuttal. Now was the time for pro-active maneuvers.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I did." The words spilled from his mouth even as his mind screamed, _SAY NO! SAY IT WAS A MISTAKE! LIE! LIE DAMN YOU! LIE!_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Who is it?" Dumbledore asked in the same tone, but the twinkle in his eyes clearly showed that he knew whom Harry would elect.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Arthur Weasley."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ To say Ginny Weasley was surprised would have been an understatement when her ex-boyfriend and love of her life Harry James Potter had mysteriously appeared in the courtroom. When he stated his nomination, she was downright stumped, confused, feeling as though she'd been dropped into another world where up was down and Snape's hair was clean.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The crowd seemed immensely shocked as well. Harry Potter elect the father of a family that turned it's back on him?

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Hoping beyond hope, Ginny held on to a tiny shred of hope that this was a good sign from Harry.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "May I ask your reasons?" Dumbledore asked, once the crowd had died down.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry bit back a "No", and responded, "You may. Arthur Weasley is a strong candidate, if none of you have noticed. From the time I have known him, at least before my unfortunate _imprisonment_," Harry laced a few words with sarcasm, "He was quite fair, firmly entrenched in the light, and a strong character. He knows how to care for his family, and he is dedicated to his job. I'll assume that people don't change much in three years, so that is the reason I nominated him."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ There was complete silence in the courtroom, everyone working through the sarcastic, bitter speech that cut both ways and found a reasonable nomination.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I second this nomination." Madam Bones said firmly, standing up. "I agree with Mister Potter's assessment, and Arthur is a good candidate. Also, Mister Potter's confidence is good enough for me."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ There were murmurs of approval, and Harry's support seemed to sway the Wizengamot into a decision.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Very well then. Are there any more nominations?" Dumbledore asked, clearly just as a formality. Not one person responded. "Then let the Wizengamot congregate now." The entire Wizengamot got out of their seats and headed towards another private room, obviously to cast their votes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry sighed, and began walking towards the exit. Having revealed himself, now he would obviously pay the price. His price came moments later as people rushed up to him, all clamoring, trying to get a conversation with him. The deadly glare that would have put a Basilisk down in a staring contest froze each and any one of them.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I don't have the time, nor do I wish to be bothered by your questions." Harry said coldly, his words and the fear of his anger sent them packing. Of course, there were a few people who still didn't leave.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry turned, and saw the face of his nomination. Arthur Weasley. He looked more afraid and shocked than ever before, a good shocked though, unlike his face when the news of his son's murder happened.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yes?" Harry asked, crossing his arms, looking impassive.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I… I… I just wanted to thank you." Arthur stuttered, out, looking half-afraid Harry would change his mind. "I'd like to thank you for your support, even though I don't deserve it."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I didn't do this as some sort of peace offering." Harry said evenly, and the faces of the Weasley's fell. "I did this because your still one Ministry official that I know well enough that isn't corrupt, and I actually do think you could do the job. It's up to the Wizengamot though. Maybe they'll make a good decision for once." Harry muttered bitterly, and Ginny and Arthur heard him, and winced.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry looked at each of them, and took each of them in. Remus looked more tired and exhausted than ever, the full moon just a few nights ago. The elder Weasley's faces held shock, surprise, and utter gratitude. The Weasley brothers, save Ron, couldn't even look Harry in the face and meet his powerful gaze. Ron looked at him with a pleading expression that was easy to read. He wanted forgiveness. Desperately.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Forgiveness isn't cheap Ron,_ Harry thought to himself. _At least not mine anymore._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He turned his gaze to Hermione, and something about her seemed strange. Something about her seemed to glow. Harry thought for a moment, and used the sight to scan her aura. What he found shocked him considerably.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You're pregnant?" Harry blurted out, looking at Hermione in surprise. Her eyes widened in shock, and then she looked at him with a contemplative expression.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yes, Harry. I am." Hermione stated, smiling at him. "I was hoping you would be the godfather?" She asked, her contemplative expression now fearful.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry looked at her now with surprise and shock. This completely threw the normally guarded and closed Harry Potter off. He almost said yes immediately, but knew that being a godfather to Hermione's child was an act of forgiveness, something he still couldn't let happen just yet.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I'll… think about it." Harry finally said, and Hermione sighed. It wasn't what she wanted, but it was better than him telling them to bugger off.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry?" Ginny asked, and he finally turned towards her. He raised a questioning eyebrow, obviously asking what Ginny wanted.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Thank you." She said gratefully, and added hopefully, "Maybe you could talk with us? Clear the air?" She looked at him with a mixture of pleading and hope, and somehow tugged at his stony heartstrings.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry's contemplative expression overtook his face, and he looked at her for a moment. "Not yet." He said quietly. "I need to work some… things out first. But maybe."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "That's good enough." Ginny said, smiling happily at him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Behind them, Ginny's brothers wore slightly pleased expressions. It had been so long since their baby sister showed her brilliant, cheery smile. They missed it terribly. Unbeknownst to them, Harry was thinking the same thing.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ A gong sounded, and Harry turned back towards the front of the courtroom. The Wizengamot had decided.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry leaned against the wall, no longer looking at the Weasleys, but straight at the door the Wizengamot would come out of. He wanted an answer.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ As the members of the Wizengamot came out, many of them looked at him with a mixture of fear, suspicion, awe, and other various emotions that Harry didn't want to sift through. Only Dumbledore looked calm, merely smiling at Harry with an unreadable expression.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "The Wizengamot has come to a decision." Dumbledore's usually jovial voice said seriously, obviously taking upon the mantle as one of the most respected wizards of the age. "The new Minister of Magic, elected by an astounding unanimous vote is Arthur Weasley."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Dead silence.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Arthur Weasley just stood there, gaping like a fish at Dumbledore, and all the Weasley's held similar expressions. Harry was a little surprised, and hoped that his power and fame had nothing to do with Mister Weasley being elected. Harry countered that thought with the knowledge that other Ministry officials respected Mister Weasley as well.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Do you accept, Arthur?" Dumbledore asked, a smile on his aged features.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Arthur had to be elbowed by Molly before he finally regained his senses, and looked towards Harry. Harry gave him a slight nod, reassuring Mr. Weasley that Harry wasn't regretting his decision.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I accept."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The uproar of cheers and joy from the Weasleys deafened the noise of all the other noises of the crowd, as the family hugged, laughed, and cried over their new success.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ When they turned to look for Harry to thank him for making this possible, he was already gone.


	12. Broken and Fixed

Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter.

Chapter 11 Broken and Fixed

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ In the three months after the election of Minister Weasley, Harry Potter had not been seen since that fateful day at the Ministry. Harry had done quite a bit of thinking in the three months he had stayed in the Marauder's castle.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ To his joy a few days after the events at the Ministry, he had happened to fall upon a hidden courtyard, complete with a Quidditch Pitch. Quite literally, he fell upon it as he fell from a ledge on the rooftop while doing some brooding, his most frequent pastime. He had discovered that it was hidden from sight, to avoid being caught by anyone, and the only reason he found it was because he fell into the illusion. It had taken some time before he found the real entrance, which was in a back corner of the castle, a good place to sneak out of. Harry amused himself by thinking about his father and the Marauders (he cut Wormtail out of the picture), even Remus, wandering and sneaking around a castle. It fit all the descriptions of the Marauders, and of course, Harry himself had done the very act several times. Needless to say, Harry had tried out nearly every broom in his collection. That alone was quite refreshing and time consuming for Harry.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Of course, Harry had also spent time exploring the rest of the castle, even after he had discovered his private Quidditch Pitch. The one room, of course, he had avoided like the plague (or his old friends) was his mother's study. He just couldn't face it.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ And this was the problem that he was now brooding over. He had gone near it once or twice, but each time, he froze, and left without a word, his entire body shaking slightly. He would always look pale, on the verge of a breakdown, and he always brooded over it.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ But Harry brooded a lot. Not that he would admit that to himself.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He wanted to get there, to beat that goddamn Boggart down and conquer it. He wanted to read about his mother's life, to learn about his heritage, his past. In short, to get one of the many things Life denied him. To do that, he needed to get some help.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He wanted to know exactly what was wrong with him. Fear, hell, any feelings were really foreign to him. _Yeah, well feelings would be tough to know with relatives that hate you, insane dark lords after your head, and most of the world deciding whether or not you're crazy or a hero._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry had come to a solution that had crept into his mind while brooding, but when he first realized it, he scared Dobby with extremely vehement swearing combined with a crazed look in his eyes. And when you scare someone who worships the loo you went on, that's pretty damn bad.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Well, anyone would react that way with my solution!_ Harry thought angrily to himself, more to justify his behavior than anything else.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry hated his solution when he had come up with it about a week ago, but in the end, he knew what he had to do, no matter how much he hated it. He needed help.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "And no, not just anyone's help, but_her_ help" Harry muttered angrily.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _You know it's our only choice. We totally suck at understanding ourself. Give us a Dark Lord, we'll beat him. A snitch on a sugar high, we'll get it. Put us under a Cruciatus, we'll endure. Try to make us do some touchy-feely crap, and we fall to pieces. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry sighed, and called Hedwig over. His snowy white owl landed nearby him, looking at him quizzically. "Here girl, take this." Harry sighed, grabbing the note he had written almost three days ago, when his resolve to not do this exact thing had been weak.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Let's just hope I'm doing the right thing." Harry muttered.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny Weasley sat at her room at the Burrow, still feeling a strange sensation of everything going too far out, too fast. In a little over six months, her whole life had turned topsy-turvy. First, she found out that the love of her life and ex-boyfriend whom she had been feeling hurt and betrayed to for over three years turns out to be innocent of the crimes she thought he committed. Next, the whole Voldemort being dead thing and the ousting of Minister Fudge in the same week. After that, and one of the most insane moments of her life, the election of HER father as Minister of Magic. It wasn't that she didn't have faith in her father, she just never expected him to be where he was now.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ All thanks to Harry Potter, who still affected everything at the Burrow and Ginny, no matter what. She really wanted to see him, but respected the fact that, no matter how much she hated it, she had no right to demand to see him. Not anymore.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Suddenly, echoing a meeting over three months ago, an owl pecked her window. But this owl was not a regular brown post owl, but a very familiar snowy owl.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Hedwig!" Ginny almost yelled, but covered her mouth, knowing that Harry would hate to have any private contact shown to anyone else. She couldn't risk it.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ She opened the window slowly, as if Hedwig was a mirage that would disappear if she spooked her. "What are you doing here girl?" Ginny asked quietly, reaching out to stroke the snowy owl's form.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Hedwig allowed herself a moment of indulgence before she thrust her leg out, the note Harry had written for her gleaming in the sunlight.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny looked at it for a moment, unable to comprehend why Harry was sending her a note.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ When she read it, however, she realized what he wanted.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ She quickly scribbled a reply, and hastily handed it to Hedwig, still half-afraid she would disappear. As she watched the snowy owl go, she felt a small amount of warmth in her heart, and it had nothing to do with the heat.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry Potter paced in the receiving room of the Marauder's Castle, both eager and half-afraid. "Calm down Harry, its just Ginny." Harry muttered, but he knew he was fooling himself, just like the last time he said that. Which of course, led to his eventual infatuation and soon love for her.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry was really hoping that wouldn't happen again.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ As he paced, he wondered if he was doing the right thing. And of course, he figured he was. If not, then what was the worst thing that could possibly happen?

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry answered that question with about a dozen scenarios before he groaned aloud and almost went for the Firewhiskey cabinet. Only the remembrance that he had a visitor kept him from getting pissed.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ For some reason, he didn't really want anyone, especially Ginny to see him when he was a raving drunk.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Probably for the best, though,_ Harry thought to himself. A combination of Ginny Weasley, Firewhiskey, his temper, and his power could lead to several very unfortunate incidents.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Several of which could land him back in Azakaban, this time, without a chance of being pardoned for being framed.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry really didn't want to be a criminal in the media's eyes again. It might lead to him going all mass murdering sociopathic Dark Lord on them. He figured he'd be a sociopath because he'd know what he was doing was wrong, he just wouldn't give a damn.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry was shaken from visions of several bloody deaths that involved several household appliances and inverting a few reporters' spinal columns into several positions that a human body, nor anything that had a spinal cord could do, when a knock was heard.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry moved slowly, deliberately, and almost hesitantly towards the door. He opened it, and, before he could help himself, a small smile passed on his face that went unnoticed by himself.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ But the redheaded girl in front of him noticed, and smiled back.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Hello Harry," Ginny Weasley said happily.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ When Ginny was given the invitation to come to Harry's flat to talk, she thought he would have a modest muggle flat, or perhaps an apartment with a sky-view. She never expected a castle half the size of Hogwarts!

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry, where did you get this?" Ginny asked as Harry led her to a sitting room.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ For a second, Harry wanted to lie, but he decided that, if he was going to get anywhere today, he needed to be honest about some things at least. "My parents." Harry stated.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I see…" Ginny said, smiling at him. "Bit big, isn't it?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Then Harry did something he hadn't done for a while. He actually chuckled. Ginny looked shocked for a moment, and Harry said after he stopped chuckling, "Yeah. It is pretty damn big."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "So, what did you want to talk to me about?" Ginny asked, knowing that Harry liked things to be straight to the point.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Well… you see…" Harry started, and began his tale. He told Ginny how he stumbled upon his mothers study and journal, how he found the Boggart, and what it turned it to. Ginny's eyes watered as Harry described with minimum feeling how everyone he has ever known and loved called him a traitor and worthless. When the tale was over, Ginny had silent tears pouring down her cheeks.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "That must have been terrible for you Harry. I'm sorry." Ginny whispered, and through her tears, she wanted to simply throw her arms around this hurting man that she loved so very much and hold him. But she didn't. She couldn't, not yet.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yeah, well… living with the Dursleys gave me a bit more resistance to being told I was worthless," Harry said, trying to lighten the mood, before adding quietly, "It was the other stuff I couldn't take."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny decided to take a chance and put her hand on Harry's knee, trying to bring him comfort with her mere touch. Unbeknownst to her, it was doing just that. "I want to get over this, Ginny. I want to move past this. I want to learn about my parents, and I'm going to need your help." Harry stated, looking at Ginny now.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry… why me? After everything I've done-" Ginny started, her voice laced with sadness and self-loathing, but Harry cut her off.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Because you know as well as I do that I'm bloody terrible at this touchy-feely stuff." Harry said, a hint of a smile playing at the corner of his lips and his eyes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "True, you are." Ginny said, smiling back.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Oh, I'm hurt." Harry playfully mocked, putting a hand to his chest. "So," He said, getting serious, "Will you help?'

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Of course I will Harry." Ginny said, looking deep into his emerald green eyes with her chocolate brown ones. "I'll always be willing to help you out. It's the least I can do."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Okay. So…" Harry started, running his hand through his hair, hoping to mask his confusion about what to do next.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Just speak about how you felt Harry." Ginny said, thinking to herself, _I sound like one of those muggle pyschowhatsis that Hermione told us about. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry's eyes closed, and he began reliving those terrible moments. They surfaced, never having stopped haunting his thoughts fully. After a moment, he was able to figure out a few things he felt.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I was… afraid. Afraid of those words. I didn't want to be betrayed again!" Harry said, his voice raising as his eyes began watering. "I didn't want to have to deal with all of that again." Harry whispered, holding his head in his hands. He felt a tiny part of the dam that held every emotion in check being cracked. He was beginning to break down.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny grabbed his hands and pulled him up to look into her eyes. "Harry, that will never happen anymore. None of us will ever leave you again. We're so sorry." Ginny whispered, and her self-control broke as she hugged Harry with all her might, pouring all her concern and love for him into it.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry allowed himself to be held, more out of the demand for comfort after being denied human touch and real contact for so long. The walls Azakaban created had begun to wear down without being needed in solitude that lacked Dementors. But, like always, Harry resisted the urge to break and tried to hold strong.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Just let it out Harry." Ginny whispered, realizing that this was the talk that the two of them really needed. No one else around, just the two of them reconciling. The previous talk between them had been merely a prelude to this real heart-to-heart.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ With that, Harry allowed a small tear to pass through his eyes, allowing his barriers to crumble in the arms of his beloved. Ginny sighed, and smiled slightly. Most people would consider that one tear him holding back, but Ginny knew how Harry was. How strong he was. How that small tear was more weakness than most people would ever get from him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I don't want to be alone…" Harry kept chanting, the mantra he used for a few months in Azakaban. Before the whole insanity then the Inheritance gig.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You'll never be alone Harry. Even when you stayed alone in this castle, you are always in our hearts. We are so sorry…" Ginny whispered, rocking him slowly. "We will never abandon you again. I won't abandon you again. I promise."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Promise." Harry whispered, the sound of his voice so pleading that Ginny felt tears grown behind her eyes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I promise. I'll never leave you Harry." She whispered, "I love you." The words slipped out before she could stop them, and she felt Harry freeze right alongside her. He pulled away, and Ginny felt as if her heart was being pulled with him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I'm sorry Harry, I shouldn't have-" Ginny started, but Harry cut her off.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I understand. Got caught up in the past, right." Harry started, forcing a smile.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Right." Ginny said, but somehow, she knew both she and Harry were lying to each other and themselves.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ After the uncomfortable silence that followed, Harry summoned Dobby to bring them some food. As they dug into the scones and Harry sipped his tea, Ginny remarked, "Hermione would be pissed that you have a house-elf, Harry."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "True," Harry said, reminiscing about S.P.E.W. and the looks he and Ron shared when Hermione got too difficult with her crusade, "But I pay Dobby."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "How'd you get Dobby anyway?" Ginny asked, curious as to how he got the eccentric house-elf from Hogwarts.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Dumbledore gave him to me," Harry said, his face tightening as he mentioned the Headmaster.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I see." Ginny said, and decided that this was probably her best chance to finish clearing the air and helping Harry on the road to healing, "You know Harry, Dumbledore is really broken up. He's less cheerful nowadays. He looks so old."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry felt a tiny worm of guilt burrowing into his mind, but he ignored it. "Is he now? Well, he is pretty ancient." He said blandly, trying to get away from the topic of the venerable wizard. Harry looked away to avoid the chance that Ginny would catch the guilt that might show in his eyes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry," Ginny said, deciding that discretion was not the better part of valor, "I know things between you and Dumbledore were strained, even before Azakaban," She nearly choked on the last word, "But he's really sorry Harry. He truly is Harry, and it's killing him that you won't speak to him. Please Harry, he doesn't have much longer."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry's head snapped around so fast Ginny was sure he used magic. "He's dying?" Harry asked incredulously, his concern showing. Harry told himself he was merely concerned what the loss of Dumbledore and the hermit life Harry had taken would do to the Wizarding World. Of course, it's quite easy to lie to yourself.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "No Harry." Ginny said, trying not to smile at his concern. "He's just a very, very old man whose only real wish is to make peace with the boy he considered a grandson."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yeah, I'm sure most grandfathers place their grandkids with relatives that hate them, and then later send them off to what amounts to Hell on Earth." Harry said bitterly, but he felt a tiny spark of warmth that Dumbledore still thought of him as a grandson.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry, Dumbledore wanted you to live. You know how he is, Harry." Ginny said, her voice a cross between placating and pleading, "He either thinks too much of people or-"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Or he thinks they're pure evil. Like he knows Tom Riddle was. Like he thought I was." Harry said bitterly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny decided that she had to risk whatever relationship she and Harry were rebuilding by bringing him out of his funk, just like she had done quite a few times in the past. "Harry, if you were in Dumbledore's shoes, and you already let Tom loose on the world, and then apparently you have a new, more powerful him that you could contain," She explained, looking into his eyes, "What would you do?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I'd-I'd…" Harry whispered, turning around and trying to avoid looking at Ginny, but she grabbed his shoulders and looked into his eyes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "What would you do?" Ginny asked, her large brown eyes boring into Harry's emerald eyes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I'd put the new Tom away." Harry whispered as his voice broke, and he looked down. "I'd want to protect the rest of the world…"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny pulled Harry up to look at her again, and said calmly, "You and Dumbledore are so much alike Harry. I'll bet you want to make peace with him to."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "How do you know?" Harry challenged.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Because… I-" Ginny began, trying to say those three words again, but Harry got the meaning, not wanting to hear those words just yet.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I know Gin. I know." Harry said, unconsciously going back to the nickname he liked to use for her. "I just… I'm afraid of… of…" Harry trailed off, unable to move the words from his mind to his mouth. He was never good with words.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Of being betrayed again?" Ginny said, getting Harry's meaning perfectly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yeah." Harry admitted softly. "It'll take some time Ginny," Harry said louder, "But maybe, if you, Dumbledore, and everyone else can wait, maybe I can trust all of you."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny smiled, feeling familiar warmth in her heart at the goodness within Harry. A purity that should have been impossible with the terrible life this young man had led. "Take as long as you need Harry." She said quietly, looking into his eyes. "We'll wait as long as you need us to."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny decided she should get back to the Burrow before anyone noticed she was gone, and Harry decided to follow her out to entrance where she left the portkey that would take her back home.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry," Ginny said as they stopped at the entrance and looked into each other's eyes, "I want you to know that the door to the Burrow is always open for you. Drop by for dinner one of these days." Ginny said, trying to keep pleading and hope from her voice.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Maybe." Harry said quietly. A moment of silence fell upon the two of them.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Well, remember, you still have to give Hermione your answer about being the godfather to her and Ron's baby!" Ginny said cheerfully, trying to lighten the mood.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Right. I can't believe they're having a kid." Harry grinned. "How is it with a pregnant Hermione hanging around?'

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Oh Merlin, it's terrible," Ginny laughed, "She's full of hormones and mood swings! She sent Ron out at three A.M. to get something she called sushi."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry couldn't help himself as he laughed along with Ginny. "I can't believe Ron was awake at three A.M., much less how he was going to find sushi." Harry said in between his mirth.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Trust me, when Hermione is screaming into your ear, you will wake up." Ginny said, smiling as she remembered her younger days when Hermione stayed in her room. "I don't think I've ever seen Ron run that fast."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ They laughed for a few more moments, till Ginny had to go. "Well Harry, thanks for inviting me over." Ginny said, smiling at him, unsure whether to offer him her hand or hug him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Thank you, Ginny," Harry replied, "Thanks for helping me out."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I forgot my promise once Harry." Ginny replied, "I'm not going to forget again."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ With that, she grasped the portkey, and was gone.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ And for some reason, the Marauder's Castle felt empty and dead to Harry.


	13. To Repair Something Broken

Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter, people, jeez.

Chapter 12 To Repair Something Broken

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Two months after Ginny Weasley had come to the Marauder's Castle, and he was seeing her in his mind more and more. He wanted to be with her again. Even his thick head could understand this.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ But he had waited so long because he still hadn't faced the Boggart. Though talking with Ginny helped, it wasn't everything he needed. He wasn't fully agreeing with the idea to allow the Weasleys, and the rest of the Wizarding World, back into his life.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ A life that had just begun living.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry knew that even almost nine months after Azakaban and for all the progress made, he was still stuck at a standstill. The fear was still there. The Boggart proved that.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ And although Harry had found much to do within the confines of the Marauder's Castle, he wanted to take a stroll. So he did. He had strolled through the forest, and now he found himself here.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ On the edge of a muggle village.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry wondered if he should go in, there might be wizards and witches down there. If they learned Harry Potter was in the area, and if the media caught on, all the wards in the world might not be enough. He would never get any privacy.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ But then again, this was the middle of nowhere. Who would know?

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ With that thought, Harry strolled into town, unaware of that what would transpire would be the final catalyst in the process of healing.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry strolled down the muggle village, smiling slightly at the children who played in its streets. A rural, isolated village, its rustic charm had a good effect on Harry. As he walked down the road, he felt drawn towards a tiny shop at the end of the road. It was a blacksmith store that made glass items.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He didn't know why, but he decided to go in. Something about it seemed to draw him, like the smell of warm, delicious food.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He smiled, and walked inside, and stopped dead as he came in, his every mental function stopped. On the shelf lay four tiny glass animals. Harry breathed softly, "Prongs, Padfoot, Moony, Wormtail."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Near perfect replicas of the four Marauders lay there. The rat caused Harry a small amount of pain, but he smiled at seeing it with all its toes and no silver paw. It reminded Harry that once, Wormtail was a young, innocent boy, not a murdering backstabber. Padfoot stood on its haunches, made of black glass and looking far larger than a normal dog, yet looking carefree at the same time. Moony was on all fours, his normally snarling and drooling jaws were in what looked like a smile. And in the front of this makeshift pack stood a majestic stag, made of a much lighter, silvery glass. Its huge antlers looked like a regal crown, echoing the majestic stance the stag took.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry tore his gaze away from the sight, eyes beginning to sting, and his breath was stolen again. A glass lily, carved of a green colored glass lay on another shelf, glinting in the sunlight. It looked delicate, but was probably extremely strong, Harry knew, without even touching it. _What the…_Harry thought in wonder.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry backed up, slightly scared now, and accidentally hit a shelf. He gasped in surprise and caught sight a bird like glass figurine before it crashed into the ground, shattering.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Oh shit…" Harry muttered, before a voice from behind startled him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Oh good."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry yelped in surprise, and turned rapidly, almost drawing his wand and blasting the shopkeeper into pieces. Which would be very, very, very bad for this business. "Oh! I'm sorry. I was just slightly surprised and…"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "It's quite alright." The young man before him said, smiling. He had dark brown eyes and black hair, with tanned skin. He was smaller than Harry, but still a fairly good height. "It's nice that someone new stopped by this old shop."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "But… I broke one of these beautiful figurines…I'll pay for it of course." Harry said, still apologetic.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "No, no. It's fine." The man said, waving away any apologies. "This is my greatest craft."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Your what?" Harry asked, confused.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "This is my favorite, and many say, greatest, craft." The man said, and he grabbed a broom and pan from the side and swept it up as he said this.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "How…" Harry asked, even more lost than before.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I remake broken figurines. And that is my favorite thing to do. I take something broken, and make it into something stronger and more beautiful than before." The man smiled, finished sweeping.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Wow… that's incredible." Harry said in awe.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Indeed. It is an extremely difficult and long process, which is why it is rarely done, but the end result is far more satisfying that way, don't you agree?" He asked, and Harry got the distinct feeling that he wasn't talking about just mere glass anymore.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Please, come back in a few hours, and I will have this figurine for you." The man said, putting the pieces into a jar.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Oh no, I couldn't…" Harry said, but the man wouldn't take no for an answer.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You allowed me to remake something, and make it better. Anyways, I would be honored for you to take a piece of my work, Mister Potter." The man said, then turned and walked into the backroom, the door closing behind him, leaving behind a shocked Harry Potter.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Wait! How did you know who I am!" Harry asked. "Who are you!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "My name is Daniel Rodriquez." The man answered from behind the door, and then there was only the sound of a furnace heating up.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ As Harry walked out into the sunlight, the lesson that Daniel had been trying to teach him was currently working inside of his mind.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He didn't know what the glassmaker was trying to convey, or what had transpired. But frankly, he was more concerned as to how in the hell the man knew who he was.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He didn't show any of the shock, or the awe that any wizard who had heard of him normally possessed. Frankly, he treated him just like a regular person.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry decided that this Daniel Rodriquez wasn't a bad fellow to know.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry, as Daniel had advised came back after three hours. The Sun was only just beginning to hit midday, as he had long since learned to tell time with the Sun. Not a precise measurement, but he could tell hours and such. Just another perk of being Harry Potter.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry walked into the shop, knowing that he should have been on edge with the blacksmith's knowledge of who he was, but somehow, with the small amount of Legilimency that he always had on, he had picked up no malice. Harry didn't know why, but he felt that the young man could be trusted.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The shop was empty, and Harry decided to call out to Daniel. "Mister Rodriquez, I'm back!" Harry called out, but no one seemed to hear him. _He must still be working. _ྭHe turned to leave when a voice was heard.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Don't call me Mister Rodriquez. Makes me sound old." Daniel said, appearing as if from nowhere. "I'm glad you came back Mr. Potter. This figurine is one of my finest works."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I still don't understand why you'd give me an item free of charge after I broke it and you had to-" Harry began, but the brown-eyed man cut him off.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I meant what I said, Mister Potter." Daniel said, "You let me rebuild something anew, make it better than it ever was."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Don't call me Mister Potter," Harry said, smiling, "Call me Harry."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Daniel smiled at the imitation, and reached behind the counter for the item. "It is fitting, Harry, that you should have broken this piece. It is almost… fated it seemed." Daniel said carefully, as he pulled the item out slowly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ When Harry saw the figurine, he gasped loudly, unable to hold the shock in.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He had broken a phoenix figurine. A jade green phoenix figurine. The color of Harry's eyes. The cracks were visible, but they now seemed to be feather marks, adding only more beauty to the figurine, instead of a blemish.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "A phoenix reborn in fire," Daniel mused, "Almost poetic, no?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry could only nod, and he took the phoenix figurine slowly, shaking. "Are you sure you don't-"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry, for the last time, I'm certain." Daniel said firmly, looking into the Boy-Who-Lived's emerald eyes with his own dark brown eyes. "Rebuilding is more difficult than forging, but it is so much more rewarding. Wouldn't you agree?" He asked, and the message finally became clear.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It all clicked in Harry's head. Daniel was teaching him that rebuilding a relationship could be an enjoyable, rewarding experience that would produce something better than before. It might even make it stronger, and more fluid. Just like the cracks on the phoenix figurine made it more beautiful, could the betrayal make the relationship's Harry would make even more beautiful?

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Thank you, Daniel. For the figurine, and the lesson." Harry said gratefully. "I hope your business picks up. It should." He said sincerely.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Daniel seemed amused by this for some reason, and smiled at Harry Potter. "You're welcome, Mister Potter." Daniel said.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I'll stop by again," Harry told the brown-eyed man, and he definitely was amused by that. But he didn't say anything, except goodbye.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ As Harry left the shop, however, he could have sworn he heard Daniel say "No you won't."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry, having gotten pretty far down the street, turned to see if Daniel was still watching him leave. What he saw floored him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ There was no blacksmith. It was as if it never existed.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Excuse me, Ma'am," Harry said to an elderly woman who was crossing the street across from him. He ran up to her, and she looked at him curiously over her half-moon spectacles that reminded Harry not so painfully of Dumbledore. She had silver hair that had streaks of brown in it, and her tiny gray eyes seemed magnified by the glasses.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Don't think I've ever seen you around here before." She commented.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I'm just visiting. Could you tell me what happened to the blacksmith shop over there?" Harry asked, pointing to where Daniel's shop once stood.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Blacksmith? We haven't had one of those in ages, son!" The woman said incredulously.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry made his way back to the castle, again reassuring himself that the phoenix figurine proved that Daniel had been there. Where did the young man go?

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Was he some sort of messenger from above, or an illusion? Harry figured he would never really know.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ But he did know one thing. With the phoenix figurine in his pocket, reassuring him and reminding him of what he could be doing, Harry knew what he had to do.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It was time to kick some Boggart arse.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry strode powerfully down to his study, his confidence shaky, but stable. The weight of the phoenix figurine in his pocket held it together, an eternal reminder of what he could do.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry decided that one the business with the Boggart was done, he'd find a great place for the figurine. Maybe right above the fireplace, or next to his bed.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He opened the door wandlessly from a good ten feet across. It never hurt to make a good entrance. He realized what he had really done a moment later.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Note to self," Harry muttered, "Make good entrances when people are around to see them."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He strode in a moment later, and glared at the dresser. "Okay, time to kick your arse." Harry snarled, before correcting himself. "If you have one."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The Boggart sprang out immediately, taking the form of Remus Lupin, as before.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Betrayer! You betrayed your parents!" Remus- Boggart-Remus, Harry corrected, yelled out.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I did not. You are not Remus Lupin." Harry replied scathingly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Without changing its angry expression, it quickly turned itself into Molly Weasley.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Sorry, but you aren't her either." Harry said, before the Boggart-Molly could even yell at him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The Boggart quickly changed into Dumbledore, Arthur Weasley, Ron, and Hermione. Harry, though beginning to weaken, felt the strength of the phoenix figurine, its comforting weight giving him strength, as if a phoenix song was playing.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You're not Hermione. She's not like that anymore." Harry replied wearily, the emotional drain quite taxing.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The Boggart, sensing that this would not be enough, changed into a haunting visage. Sirius Black. Harry almost lost it, but kept his composure. "Sorry, I talked with Sirius before he died. And my parents. They're proud of me. Your not my godfather, your just a stupid little Dark Creature!" Harry snarled.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The Boggart began faltering, but changed into another haunting visage. James and Lily Potter.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "STOP!" Harry roared. "STOP IT NOW! STOP DEFILING MY PARENT'S MEMORIES! JUST GO AWAY YOU STUPID BOGGART!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The Boggart-Potters were thrown back by the sheer force of Harry's rage (coupled with accidental magic bursts). Harry glared at them, and in a low whisper, said, "You are not my parents."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The Boggart-Lily and James seemed enraged by the lack of terror, taking the shape of Ginny Weasley instantaneously in a loud pop and burst of smoke. Ginny's beautiful face was contorted in rage and betrayal.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Going straight for the killing blow, aren't cha?" Harry said nonchalantly, but slightly shaken.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The Boggart-Ginny began shouting. "You betrayed me Harry! How could I ever-"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "YOUR NOT HER!" Harry roared, glaring at the Boggart.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I am Ginny Weasley!" Boggart-Ginny yelled, "And you are nothing but a pathetic wizard who has betrayed us all!" She snarled.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry's resolved faltered, and he took a few steps back in weakness, looking down. The Boggart moved for the kill. "You are nothing Harry! I never loved you!" Boggart-Ginny roared out, glaring at him with so much hate that Harry's heart almost broke in two without looking at her, only feeling the heat of her glare. He was losing the battle.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry looked up at that moment, and met those enraged fake brown eyes, so different from the kind brown eyes that always interested and were adored by Harry. It was in that moment that memories of Ginny over the past eight months poured in, memories of a woman who wanted him to be happy, to be whole again. Not this… creature.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "YOU ARE NOT GINNY! I KNOW GINNY, AND YOU ARE NOT HER!" Harry roared, and glared at the Boggart as all his magical force began descending in anger towards this… thing that had tried to destroy Harry.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The force of that power demolished the Boggart, without any Riddikulus casting or laughter. Just sheer magical force. As Harry looked at the dusty remains, he felt a relief grow within him. He had conquered his demons.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry, after an hour of debating with himself and deciding, was beginning to question his resolve. "Am I mental? Do I really want to do this?" Harry asked himself.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ But he knew that this would be the day. Newly conquering his demons had given him the strength. Along with the phoenix figurine's reassuring weight, he felt certain this was the right thing to do.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Nevertheless, he was bloody nervous!

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Man, it's not even as bad as that first date with Gnny, Potter. Get a hold of yourself." Harry muttered, and his anxiety cleared as he remembered in a blush how that date had ended.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry checked his watch, one of his dad's old ones. It told regular time with a simple two-hand set up, but it could also be used to track certain people, like the Weasley's clock. Harry had found it along with a small note.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _To be given to Harry at his marriage ceremony._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry had almost broken down crying that day, but stayed strong, mostly through humor. His parents had already planned his marriage out, probably!

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It wasn't his marriage ceremony, but he figured that his parents wouldn't mind him getting it now. It was a nice watch. And somehow, it reminded Harry of his promise to continue the Potter line and live happily.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry, in his most guarded and hidden corner of his heart, had always wanted children, to give them the life he never had. To protect them, and spoil them. Well, not to the extent of Dudley, but they would never want for food or clothing. Harry always attributed living happily as living with a wife and kids.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Three years ago, and quite recently, Harry's wife had brown eyes and red hair…

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry looked at his watch after the moment had passed, remembering what he had been doing before his thoughts led him astray. "They're probably sitting down for dinner about now." Harry muttered, picturing the warm, delicious feasts that always accompanied Molly Weasley's dinners.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry casted a Portkey, and squashed any second thoughts. Although he preferred Apparation, it might alert those he would be visiting to his presence. "Time to go see some old friends." Harry whispered, and was jerked from the Marauders Castle by a familiar tug on his navel… And found himself in front of the Burrow.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry walked up the Burrow slowly, as if he was in disbelief about being there. He could see that it had been fixed up, and looked nicer than before, but still had that homely feel to it. He didn't feel any Aurors around, nor any other magical law enforcement, so Mr. Weasley must have insisted that he not need protection. And frankly, Harry agreed. The twins were more than enough deterrent to any sort of attack.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ As Harry turned his attention to the Burrow, he opened his magical Sight fully. He found that, much to his surprise, every single Weasley family member, Hermione, as well as several others he recognized as Fleur Delacour, Angelina Johnson and Katie Bell. He supposed that Fleur, Angelina, and Katie were now tied to three of the Weasley brothers. He figured that Charlie and Ginny were the only untied Weasleys, as Percy was-

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Before Harry could allow that thought to fully form and destroy his resolve, he moved closer to the door, and closed his eyes, breathing out heavily. Then he knocked on the door.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Heaven help me._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I'll get it mum!" Ginny called out, having been closest to the door. She had been disappointed when Harry had not come by at any time, but she respected his wishes. It would take time, if time could rebuild their relationship.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Still, she couldn't help but hope!

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ When she opened the door, despite her hope, however, she nearly fainted. Standing there, looking sheepish and uncertain, was Harry Potter.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Er… Hi Gin. Can I come in?" Harry asked, looking uncertain.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny, somehow managing to get her vocal chords working again, managed a soft croak. "Su-sure. We're just about to have dinner. Join us."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny looked at Harry uncertainly, and Harry looked just as uncertain, weighing his options. Finally, he decided to be a Gryffindor again.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Okay." Harry said, and Ginny felt happiness flood her veins.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny led an uncertain Harry Potter into the kitchen, and, despite three years of not even picturing the Burrow, Harry found himself not being led so much as being pulled along, lest he try and leave.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Which of course, was Ginny's intention. Harry, despite all his courage and bravery, might back out. She wasn't about to let that happen!

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Hey guys, look who turned up for dinner!" Ginny said cheerfully, pulling Harry into full view of the Weasleys.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ In any other moment, Harry would have found the moment hilarious.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Hermione was frozen, a spoon full of potatoes halfway between his mouth and plate, not moving. Ron had his own potatoes falling out of his gaping mouth. The twins had spat out their drinks, all over Angelina and Katie, who didn't seem to notice their faces were wet as they gaped at Harry. Charlie had dropped his drink onto his lap, but didn't seem to notice. Bill and Fleur looked similarly gobsmacked, and from the way Bill had been turned, towards Mr. Weasley, they had been talking. That conversation was effectively been killed when Harry turned up. Mr. Weasley seemed to be struggling to keep his composure from falling into shock, and failing miserably. Mrs. Weasley had dropped the plate of food she had been holding, which was a pity, considering how good the dish smelled.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Er… Hi!" Harry said cheerfully. "Mind if I sat down with you guys?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ After a few more moments of uncomfortable silence for Harry, Mrs. Weasley broke the silence. "Of course dear. Let me get you a plate." She said, looking at him the way she used to, gauging how much he had been starved.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ After that, the conversation seemed to return to normal, save with Ron, who still looked somewhere between mildly uncomfortable to gobsmacked.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Ron, your mouth is still hanging open dear." Mrs. Weasley commented as she ushered Harry into a chair.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ron quickly shut his mouth, figuring that it would be best for Harry to be comfortable and not ask questions about why he was there. Better to enjoy the moment now.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry felt a rush of gratitude towards the Weasleys. None of them even batted an eye (apart from that incident) about him coming over, and treated it as naturally as ever. It was just like the first time he came to the Burrow, with the Weasleys not even really shocked or amazed that he was there without an invitation.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He sat down next to Ginny, who smiled at him, as if to say _You're home now._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Mrs. Weasley fixed Harry a gigantic helping, far more than even Dobby could have mustered. And with Dobby, he tried to drown Harry in food sometimes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The conversations continued as normal, but from time to time, the Weasleys looked at Harry, as if they wanted to say something. Harry noticed, but he said nothing, and mostly just ate and reveled in his time at the Burrow, and the delicious meals of Molly Weasley.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The Weasleys, however, figured this was the best time to talk with Harry. They all got up, almost in unison, both the redheaded Weasleys and their significant others, and were about to say something when Hermione made a small squeak of surprise.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Everyone turned to look at her. Hermione never squeaked!

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Hermione? What's wrong?" Ron asked concernedly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I think my water broke," Hermione whispered.


	14. Old and New Life

Disclaimer- I dinna own 'Arry Potter, idjit!

ྭ

Chapter 13 New and Old Life

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ There are moments in everyone's lives when no words can describe the feeling of absolute and complete and utter shock in that moment. You know those times, when no one can say anything, because nothing could possibly describe the moment? It could be a moment of complete insanity, disbelief, or, in this particular case, mind numbing joy.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ For what could have been a split second, but felt like the lifetimes of universes, everyone merely stared at Hermione Weasley in absolute shock. The woman in question had a look of complete shock on her face as well.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Everyone wore a similar expression of shock, save Ron.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Shock wasn't extreme enough for his expression. Perhaps a description would be best. Ronald Bilius Weasley's jaw was lower than it had ever been, even lower than they day Hermione married him, than the scene only minutes before when Harry Potter walked in through the door. His sapphire eyes were so wide, Dobby would have been put to shame, and his face had turned whiter than a ghost.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Finally, to break this immense, heavy, smothering, overwhelming shock, one word from a certain Harry James Potter broke the spell. "What!"ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The next few moments were a blur for Harry. First, following the mind numbing shock, came ear shattering screams from four different women at the same time. And with Ginny and her mother's lungs at their peak performance, Harry could have sworn he had gone deaf, and had internal bleeding within his skull.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Next came the rushing. Harry, who was deep down (buried beneath the hero) a laid back person (except in times of high stress or danger, when he turned into an arse kicking, Dark Lord killing, incredibly powerful speaker mode), did not like rushing. But that's what he found himself doing, rushing around Hermione, hearing incomprehensible words while still struggling to process the last statement made by said woman.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Finally, as everyone rushed towards Hermione save Harry, who felt strangely out of place, though it was not really strange for him, he noticed one other person who followed his lead. Ron looked as if he had been hit with a Full Body Bind, complete with a Freezing Charm just for laughs. And he looked immensely comical too.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry, no matter how he felt towards his old- friend(?), was that the word, well whatever Ron was, he wasn't going to miss the birth of his child, not one second. "Oi! Ron! Wake up!" Harry called out, and his words, like his previous statement, shook Ron out of his shock and galvanized him into action.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry had always wondered exactly what of his mother Ron had inherited. He got her temper, Harry supposed, but all her children did. Ginny especially. That was probably just a Weasley thing. But now he knew.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Because Ronald Bilius Weasley was doing more mollycoddling in the past five minutes than Harry had ever seen out of Mrs. Weasley, even at her best and most protective. He looked so similar to his mother, it was scary.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ So, while Ginny had inherited the most out of her mother's temper and part of her motherly nature, Ron, apparently, had gotten the most of it.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Hermione? Are you okay? Are you alright? Can you Floo? I don't want you Apparating with the baby. Mione?" This was what Ron generally said every thirty seconds, in between several incomprehensible statements that probably not even Hermione, who could translate Ron when he had his mouth full or even that time when he was drunk on Firewhiskey (Harry allowed himself a small chuckle at the memory), could understand.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Actually, everyone was staring at Ron strangely for a moment, till they remembered the pregnant lady he was talking to.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ And so the chaos began once more.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Somehow, through all the chaos, confusion, and general insanity that the twins would have given their left arms to cause, they managed to get to the fireplace and, in a mad scramble, they quickly ushered Hermione gently into it, and handed her the floo powder. With practiced ease, yet numb with shock, Hermione called out, "St. Mungo's Maternity Ward!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ In a flash of green fire, she was gone. Ron (who nearly tripped over himself in a dash to be next) flooed after his wife, and his parents joined him after.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry then realized that since he had no clue where the St. Mungo's Maternity Ward was, and he'd rather not wade through a mob of people rushing to thank him or just stare in abject awe and warship, groaned. "I bloody hate Floo Powder," Harry muttered to himself as he was pushed forward.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Praying to whatever higher power was listening that over three years without using Floo Powder wouldn't make his entrances any worse than they had been, he called out "St. Mungo's Maternity Ward!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Unfortunately, Harry found out that three years does make a difference, no amount of power or knowledge could change that. And so, Harry Potter tumbled headfirst out of the fireplace in the most ungraceful manner possible, looking more like a drunken village idiot than the most powerful wizard alive, his confusion leading up to a literal bang as he ran headlong into a wall.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ And that's how Ginny, Fred, George, Katie, Angelina, Bill, Fleur, and Charlie found the Boy-Who-Lived/Man-Who-Defeated-He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, on his arse and looking like a muggle-born first year on his very first day at Hogwarts.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry? What are you doing on the floor?" Ginny asked, trying her hardest not to sound too innocent, lest Harry take offense. Everyone else was the same way, trying their hardest (the twin's not so much) not to break out into fits of laughter.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Er…" Was his only response, before Harry got up, trying to retain whatever dignity he still had, and prayed to whatever deity that was currently available that no one saw his 'graceful' entrance.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Well, hurry up there Harry, we don't want to miss a second of Hermione's labor." Fred said mock impatiently, tapping his finger against his arm, both of which were crossed.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry wondered if he should be upset that they were mocking him, but decided that it was a good sign if they were more comfortable around him now. It was hard to be friendly with people who looked like they wanted to apologize to you every five seconds.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Sure." He said, smiling at them for what seemed like the first time in ages. It came so naturally to Harry that he barely gave it a second thought as he took off to the front desk.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ However, the significance of that one smile wasn't lost on the recipients, who grinned happily as they followed the Boy-Who-Lived.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Excuse me miss," Harry asked politely to the bored looking receptionist, "Do you know where Hermione Weasley" (the two words still felt strange on his tounge together) "was taken to?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The receptionist didn't even look up (which Harry was very pleased to note), but asked "Are you family?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry was about to say no when Bill butted in "We're family. All of us." He said, looking pointedly at Harry to tell him to be quiet.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry complied, feeling another piece of the stone wall around his heart beginning to break.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The receptionist nodded with a bored look, obviously not really caring about protocol, and used a finger to sift through some forms with nearly illegible handwriting. Finally, she found it. "She's in Room 103, but you'll have to wait in the reception area in the 100 wing." The receptionist droned, still not looking up (Harry decided that today was a good day).

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry nodded, and looked around to see if the younger Weasley's and their significant others caught the room number, and, after seeing they did, together they tore on down towards the 100 wing.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Upon their arrival, they found Ron and his parents already sitting down. Harry briefly wondered how everything had gone so fast, but figured that magic probably had something to do with it. _It's funny,_ Harry thought to himself, _that I've spent so much time in magical hospitals, but I don't know how they work._

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Mr. Weasley sat on a couch next to his wife, patting her hand while Mrs. Weasley held an anxious yet eager expression, obviously anticipating her first grandchild.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ron was picture perfect example of an anxious father-to-be, pacing around nervously, mumbling incoherent words while his eyes kept darting to and fro. All he lacked were some cigarettes, and those muggle cartoons Harry had once glimpsed before he was forced back into labor on the Durlsey's telly would have perfectly accurate.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Without a word passing, the arrivals quickly sat down in various areas, waiting for the newest addition to their family.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry sat down, feeling quite out of place. He was sure Mr. Weasley and probably Bill, Charlie, and maybe the twins had been through something like this before (after all, Mrs. Weasley did have seven children), but Harry had never been through something like this before. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were quite content with Dudley, and they always made comments that Harry was enough trouble as it was.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ And so, he sat there, shifting every so often, nearly as nervous as Ron.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny must have sense his discomfort, because she hesitantly put her hand on his arm and asked softly, "Are you okay?'

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry turned and offered her a quiet smile that came before he could stop its arrival. "Just a little out of place, I guess. Never experienced anything like this before." Harry answered sheepishly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny smiled at him, his clumsiness in anything related to feelings endearing as always. "Neither have I." She said reassuringly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Another piece.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry felt a little better after that remark, and relaxed a tiny bit, but now he considered two things. First off, were the complications and dangers of childbirth he had heard about. Aunt Petunia had often watched many a soap opera on the telly that depicted women dying giving birth, and Harry knew that he, nor Ron, nor any of the Weasleys, maybe not even life would be the same without Hermione. Harry couldn't imagine life without that nagging older sister presence.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Second, was the question that Hermione had put forward months ago, back when they were electing the next Minister of Magic. Would he, did he dare become godfather to Ron and Hermione's child? Should he? Harry didn't know, and decided to leave it be for now. As he had been told many a time by his father in Azakaban, "There's no sense in wasting time with questions that can't be answered right now. Focus on the here and now."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Sound advice, that had gotten Harry through Azakaban, and would hopefully get him through the rest of his life. He just hoped that the questions would be answered soon. He hated waiting.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ After a few more minutes, the door opened and they were allowed to see Hermione. They found her sitting up, looking decidedly nervous and anxious at the same time. "Hello everyone." She said, smiling at them, but they could see she was still uncomfortable.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Everyone greeted her, with Ron already at her side as soon as they got in, until only Harry was left. "How are you, Hermione?" Harry asked quietly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Hermione, picking up on Harry's mood, smiled reassuringly at him. "I'm fine, Harry. Don't worry about me." She said.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry didn't want to make a fuss, so he nodded and was about to back away when Hermione spoke again. "I'm glad you were here for this, Harry." She said quietly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ron nodded slowly, and gave him a timid smile. "Yeah, great timing." He offered.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry smiled back, a habit that he decided to keep. "Yeah. I guess it was."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The wall was cracking. Pieces grew more fragile.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The three, the trio, were reunited at last in silence.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ And then, Hermione gave a combination of a groan and scream and collapsed back into the bed, sweating heavily. Ron and Harry looked in shock, the words of the Healer barely registering. "She's going into labor!" He yelled.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Again, chaos reigned as everyone save Ron was kicked out of the room, though most offered no resistance, still registering what was going on.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ And so, Harry found himself waiting, once more.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ After what seemed like twelve different eternities, they got the news.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ A young Mediwitch came in, smiling at them happily. A good sign, Harry decided.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You can come in now. They're resting." She said quietly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ They nodded, taking the hint and quietly shuffled in, shy, yet eager to see the newborn.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry heard Ginny and Mrs. Weasley squeal with quiet delight (Harry amused intensely by this, as, it seemed, the males of the family were, save Ron, who still looked a combination of shock and awe), and Mr. Weasley made his way over to Ron, grasping his shoulder reassuringly. The father and son shared a quiet, understanding smile, and Harry felt a pang of jealousy which he stabbed to death mentally.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Bill and Charlie grabbed their younger brother's shoulders after their father, and they too shared a quiet smile.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The twins looked at the young one with delight, eager for a new mind to corrupt.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Yet Harry couldn't feel as if something was wrong, that something was dragging the air down, as if for a moment. It hit him. Like the bludger Dobby sent after him second year, it hit and caused him to wince in pain, trying hard not to show what he knew.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Percy.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Percy was dead and would never see his first nephew.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry didn't think there were words to fix that hole, and didn't want to try. Nothing could be said. Sometimes silence was the best comfort of all, silence with family.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Come see Harry. Come see." Ginny urged, tugging on his shirt softly, urgently as she led him towards Hermione and the baby.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry hesitated. What would this baby look like? Would it like him? Would he be able to see past the hurt within himself and see the baby not as the child of Ron and Hermione alone, but as its own person?

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Potter, it's a baby. Babies aren't capable of such advanced thoughts minutes after birth. _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry decided that he was just being paranoid,

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry looked at the young child, this beautiful baby boy, but the wall around his heart did not crumble.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It shattered. It was demolished. It was bombarded with more destructive rays than the Millennium Falcon. It wasn't even dust, it was just tiny bits and pieces, barely bigger than an atom. It was destroyed, utterly and completely, looking into this baby's bright, innocent, wonderful sapphire eyes so full of innocence that Harry wanted to protect it with his life. He knew in that moment he had found his way back home, surrounded by all these people and looking into this child's eyes that were so much like his father's, he was home.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry fought down tears, and smiled. Somehow, this baby, this life was like his own now, representing how he felt now, how he had wanted to feel ever since he destroyed the Boogart. New, and with infinite possibilities for the future, but it had support and love with which to draw strength from.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He didn't know if this was how Ron felt, but when he looked at Ron, he saw that Ron held the same awed look. Everyone did. The first new child of the Weasley family. His family. They fell in love with this child who did not know anything about war, about Tom Riddle, about death.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He felt peace, and lost himself in happiness for a moment. He had found a rare moment of peace.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Until that peace was shattered.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It happened so fast Harry wasn't sure what was going on. All of a sudden, people were rushing in absolute chaos, he dimly heard Mrs. Weasley scream and Ginny shout, and he felt himself being pushed out of the room roughly with panic reigning. Chaos reigned, but Harry didn't even notice.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ His mind was stuck on what they had shouted as he was pushed out.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "_Oh Merlin! She's hemorrhaging! Get Blood Replenishment Potions, fast! Move damnit!" _

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "_This isn't good! She's losing too much blood, too fast! We don't have enough power or potions to do this!"_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Hemorrhaging. Harry felt his blood run cold and fear that echoed the days when Ginny had been a target for kidnapping, when people he loved were being targeted.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Life gives. Life takes. Life gives. Life takes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It wasn't fair! He had just decided to forgive them all, and now Hermione was going to die? NO!

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He wouldn't let it. He wouldn't let this happen, he wouldn't let another child lose a parent while he was there. He wouldn't!

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I won't…"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Dimly, he heard Mrs. Weasley sobbing, and the Weasley brothers tried to console Ron, who didn't even hear them.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I won't let…"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He heard Mr. Weasley try to console his youngest son and his wife, to no avail.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I won't let anyone…"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He heard Ginny begin to come behind him, to comfort him. He didn't want it. He wanted to make things right.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I won't let anyone else suffer!" Harry roared, and for the first time in so long, his magic got loose. It caused all people to feel the ripple of immense power emanating from him, from his soul. The anguish, the power, the righteous fury that crashed upon them like the fury of a storm like a tsunami crashing down onto a village.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It was anger.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It was fury.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It was sorrow.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It was love.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Love for Hermione, that bossy, nosy, overprotective sister figure who had always been there. That bushy haired girl who talked too much. That girl who turned his Firebolt in to protect him, the girl whose intelligence pulled him and Ron out of plenty of trouble. They were like siblings, and Harry would be damned to hell itself if he would let his sister die.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He found himself storming towards the room, barely aware of what he was doing. He didn't know what he could do, too angry and panicked to scan his memory for a useful spell, only capable of doing minimal brain functions with what was the equivalent of his sister near death.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He burst into the room, eyes blazing and looking exactly as he truly was. The person who defeated Voldemort and his armies single-handedly, who defied the Dark Lord since he was one year old, who survived the horror of Azakaban, who was the most powerful person in the world.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Needless to say, those people got the hell out there.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You can't leave now Mione! Not now! Not now!" Harry roared, and let his magic loose. He didn't even bother with words, emotions powered the best spells, and right now, he was intensely emotional. He wanted to heal her, to keep her from death. She had to live! For Ron! For the baby! For him!

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Damnit Mione! You're supposed to be here for me! For your kid! For Ron, for Merlin's sake! He'll be lost without you!" Harry cried out desperately to the bleeding woman in front of him. "YOU CAN'T LEAVE!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Like the high tide, his magic pushed towards the woman, full of the desire to heal, backed by the power to demolish a mountain without breaking a sweat. Harry's powers were at full swing now, emotions breaking all locks on his power.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The sapphire colored magic touched her, and wherever it touched, it purged the blood. It went inside of her, where she was bleeding and hemorrhaging, where she was dying. And it struck. It literally sealed the wound and closed up the places where she bled with magic better than anything ever seen.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Hermione's life force was slipping, Harry could see that with the Sight. So he did what his mind thought best at the moment. He threw more energy at her, to shore up her power, forcing her, demanding her to take his strength.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ And take it she did. Her aura, of its own accord, grabbed that power as a lifeline and drank from it like a straw, bleeding from Harry his strength so that Hermione could live. Even at the cost of his own life, Harry would not let her die.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry's raw energy eventually subsided, leaving Hermione healthy and whole, completely unhurt.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry, on the other hand, collapsed with the effort, being pulled into the oblivion of unconsciousness.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ When Harry awoke, he found himself being hauled up to his feet. He dragged his eyes open to find the Weasleys looking at him with awe and gratitude, mostly gratitude.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The medical staff, on the other hand…

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Well, they looked… impressed didn't seem a strong enough word to describe how they looked.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry looked away from them, a desperate look in his eyes. "Where's Hermione?" He asked fearfully.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The gazes from the Weasleys were reassuring, and Ginny grabbed his shoulder and squeezed it to give him further comfort.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "She's fine Harry. See for yourself." Ron said, grabbing him and giving him the most thankful gaze he had ever been given, before it got topped.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Hermione looked more than grateful. "Harry… you… saved my life…" She whispered, tears in her eyes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Well, I couldn't let you go, before I answered your question, could I?" Harry asked, a small smirk on his face.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Hermione, and everyone else looked shocked, then hopeful. "What is your answer, Harry?" Hermione asked hoarsely, getting her voice back.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yes."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ This seemed like the day for chaos.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Utter and complete pandemonium. Sheer madness. Chaos.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ That was what surrounded Harry Potter as he accepted the role of godfather to the newborn Weasley child. Harry heard cheers, felt his back being patted (more like hammered, some of the time), pulled into various hugs, and kissed on the cheek (that one was Ginny).

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ But a better madness. A better chaos. A happy chaos.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Slowly, but surely, the biggest, brightest smile appeared on Harry's face, and he looked happy and at peace. This time, it lasted.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ They danced and laughed around Harry, who smiled happily.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ But finally, Harry was struck with a thought. "Hey guys… what is the baby's name?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Well, there goes my peace. _


	15. Home at Last

Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter. That's what my lawyers advise me to say, anyway. (Okay, I don't have any lawyers. This is just what I'd assume mine would say. Unless it was Wolfram and Hart. Then they would tell me to say it, then sue the living hell out of J.K. But I don't do business with evil lawyers. Or lawyers in general.)

Chapter 14 Home at Last

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry couldn't believe this.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It was insane.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Unthinkable.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Completely and utter nonsense.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Mrs. Weasley hadn't thought of a name for her grandchild!

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Apparently, Charlie, Bill, and the twins were also in shock. They would have figured their mother would have named their great grandchildren!

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Which of course, Fred (or maybe George) vocalized. "Mum? You don't have a name?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Mrs. Weasley blushed, rivaling Ginny for a moment, before regaining her composure. "Well, with all the stressfulness that's been going on…" Mrs. Weasley said, trailing off as she got lost on her grandchild again.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Charlie and Bill tried to hold in their laughter, but the twins were too far gone. They broke out into a fit of laughter, roaring and slapping their knees.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry, despite himself, chuckled. It was pretty funny.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Still, no one had a name. Hermione looked visibly shocked that she had forgotten in the scramble after Harry's escape and innocence, the election of her father-in-law to Minister of Magic, and the constant attempts to repair the broken bond between her, as well as the other Weasleys, one in particular, and Harry Potter.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I can't believe I forgot!" Hermione cried out, looking horrified.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Well, you have been under a lot of stress lately Hermione, and you have been busy…" Ron said, trying to placate his wife.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It seemed to work, but then she exploded out into the standard Hermione in deep thought mode.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ She kept saying different names rapidly, shaking her head, nodding, and looking pensive after every name. "Why so choosy?" Harry asked Ginny softly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The redhead had a mischievous look in her brown eyes, and replied just as softly, "With a name like Hermione, I'd be choosy about my child's name too."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry chuckled. "True. Just don't tell her that."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ A week later, Harry Potter sat nervously in his favorite chair in the Marauder's Castle, waiting anxiously for his guests. After they had named the baby, which had taken another good hour, Harry was dragged off by the Weasleys to the Burrow, where they 'asked' (Namely, Mrs. Weasley and Ginny looked pleadingly at him, which he couldn't fight. Damn manipulative redheads.) Harry to stay.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Of course, Harry had to stay. But, as Bill yelled as they pushed him up to Percy's room (with no small tears from Ginny, Mrs. Weasley, and some whitened knuckles from the Weasley men) and forced him to sleep there. It had been converted to a guest room, but Harry could still 'feel' Percy's presence.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ A side effect, Harry supposed, of how he inherited his powers. Or rather, gained them.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ And now it was time to explain all, and clear the air.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry had been at the Burrow twice more, both to see his new godchild, and the last one to inform the Weasleys to use the Portkey he left them to come to his home.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ When asked why he didn't visit more than those two times, he replied he was making preparations.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Actually, he was cleaning up, despite Dobby's protests. Harry always felt simpler, his mind clearer, when working his hands in manual labor.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He reviewed what he would do, how he would do this, explain his forgiveness, give it to them.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry had also steeled himself to invite two more people. Remus, because the werewolf really had no one in the world and probably desperately needed to hear Harry's forgiveness, and… Albus Dumbledore. As much as Harry still resented him, even a little bit left over from sixth year, Harry didn't want a rift too wide between himself and the still prominent Headmaster.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ If the Dark ones, and there would be more, caught wind of it, they might perceive a weakness and attack. Harry wouldn't allow this fragile piece to be destroyed so soon.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ And so, he, despite how much he didn't want to, invited Dumbledore over to the Marauder's Castle. Actually, he sent Dobby over to the Headmaster's office.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry visited Remus though, and he was unprepared for the shape the werewolf was in.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Three days ago, Harry Potter had made his way over to Lupin's home, the werewolf living at the house his parent's left him. Harry had to remember this from before, and from a few stories his parents and Sirius told him. Lupin had been adamant he never spend too long in Grimmauld place, lest he be overwhelmed by his own grief. Harry had never actually been there himself, but the Weasleys had, and they steered him in the right direction.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ron had looked like he wanted to come, but his bruised ribs (courtesy of his sister and wife) reminded him that Harry probably wanted to meet with the last Marauder alone.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ And so there he was, knocking on Remus' door, shuffling his feet nervously, contemplating exactly what he wanted to say that didn't involve violence or ranting.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Which slightly limited his options, just a tiny bit.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ But then the door opened, and Harry, despite everything he had seen, endured, and felt, was unprepared.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Remus Lupin looked like he was almost at deaths door, holding onto a single firewhiskey bottle tightly, his gray silver eyes completely bloodshot, his light brown hair almost completely swallowed up by a mass of gray, his skin deathly pale. His face was unshaven, his robes filthy. His head was slightly drooping, so he couldn't see Harry. Heck, he could barely stand.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry surmised this with one short, horrified phrase. "You look like hell."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Remus' head shot up like a bullet, despite his ailing, atrocious, and just God-awful state, almost dropping the firewhiskey in his hand. "Harry?" Remus rasped, his voice cracked from disuse and his eyes open in wonderment, causing Harry to wince at just how red they were.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Hey." Harry whispered softly. He couldn't believe how much the man in front of him was suffering. Was this how badly he truly felt?

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Woul-Would you like to come in?" Remus rasped softly, trying to clear his throat.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Er…" Harry said ineloquently, noticing the bottles and the trash everywhere. This wasn't like Remus. Remus was tidy. "Sure."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Remus, despite his terrible state, seemed to lose five years and half of his weariness from the word. Almost tripping over himself, he ushered the Boy-Who-Lived inside.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Sorry it's so messy, I'm…" Remus started, his cracked voice beginning to settle back down, but Harry cut him off.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Wallowing in depression? Remus..." Harry cut in, looking the man in the eyes, unable to speak. What could he say? Finally, he put off what he would say and decided it was better if he talked to a more coherent Remus.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Muttering a powerful healing spell he had picked off of one mediwitch, followed up by a sobering charm (given to him by his father and Padfoot, despite his mother's outraged protests), and then a refreshing charm, he glanced at Remus once he was done.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The man in front of him looked better, if one discounted the poor robes he was wearing. Remus looked amused for a moment. "A Sobering Charm? That's something that the Marauders perfected…" Remus started, lost in a memory for a moment.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I know." Harry said softly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry… I'm-" Remus began, looking desperate now, as if Harry was an apparition that would fade away at a moment's notice, "I'm sorry, so sorry. Please…I know I don't deserve your forgiveness, much less your parents, but…"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Remus." Harry cut in, his voice strong yet soft. "Forgiveness is something that is given, even if it isn't earned."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Now Remus looked utterly flabbergasted. "How did you… James used to say that a lot, especially after that incident with Snape…" Remus whispered, closing his eyes, remembering better days.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I know."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Now Remus was even more dumbstruck. "But… who…"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry's face turned a slightly mischievous look, reminding Remus with a pang that that was how James looked when he had a secret he wanted, yet waited to tell. It hurt, but what hurt worse was the knowledge that he had failed James and Sirius and Lily. "My secret, for now at least."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "So… not that I didn't want to see you, but-" Remus began, but Harry cut him off.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I came… well, I came to invite you over to my place, along with the Weasleys and Dumbledore, in three days. To… clear the air, so to speak."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Remus smiled, his teeth showing to their fullest extent, but he still looked on in disbelief. "You… want…:"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yeah. I do want to bring you all back into my life. I… suppose you've all suffered long enough without me." Harry said, his look turning mischievous again, and a smirk wormed its way across his features. Remus couldn't help but smile back. "You have, it seems." Now Harry looked almost concerned and disappointed.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Remus realized the state his flat, and his body was in. "I haven't been this bad since…" Remus coughed, choked up for a moment, "Since October 31st, 1981. Even when Sirius died, I at least got him back for a while, and had work…"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry caught on immediately. The day his parents died, and the subsequent tragic events that led to Sirius being imprisoned and Wormtail's escape. "You do look like hell." Harry said lightly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Remus looked mock offended, loosening up a tiny bit. "I suppose I do," He mused, rubbing his unshaven chin.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Silence for a few moments, as both sides wondered what to do.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "So, what do you say? You never did answer my question." Harry said, smiling slightly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Remus smiled back. "Sure."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ So now Harry had everything set up, and all that was left was to sit in his favorite chair and wait. And wait.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ And wait.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "This waiting is going to drive me nutters." Harry muttered to himself.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Finally, a knock. Harry gulped. He had never, not in his nineteen whole years of life, ever received guest in his home. Not that he ever really had a home, besides Hogwarts and maybe the Burrow. And those weren't really his, as in ownership. This was.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Maybe he could have waited a little longer.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Steeling himself, he strode to the door and pulled on it. Despite himself, he smiled. They were all here. The Weasleys, Remus, and Dumbledore.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He greeted them, though it took a little effort to greet Dumbledore civilly, then he turned to the one, the youngest, whom he had not yet greeted.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ His godson.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Hi there, Hugh."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ His godson's naming was a tricky business. No one knew exactly what to call him, what to name him, what name he should have been given.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Percy had been shot down immediately, it brought back too much, it might make his godson try to be like Percy. And as much as all of them missed him, they didn't really want another one, or want the child to obsess over trying to replace someone.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ It had to fit. The child, though but a few hours old, already captured everyone's hearts. His eyes were bright, and somehow, despite being new to the world, seemed kind. How they could tell, no one knew. They knew that this child would be a kind person with a good heart, somehow.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry had suggested it was the parents, and Ron shot back maybe it was the godfather's influence on him. Although ludicrous and impossible, Ginny commented that somehow, looking into the child's sapphire eyes was like seeing Harry's emerald eyes. The two of them had hearts that were shining through their eyes, until Harry had been forced to hide it. But their eyes were similar, Mrs. Weasley had noted, with that same innocence.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Hermione wanted something that sounded sophisticated, but less of a hassle than Hermione. Simple, but it should fit the child.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Even Mrs. Weasley didn't really have a name that fit the child as well. Finally, Ron turned to Harry and asked, "What do you think we should name him?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry sputtered in shock. "Me? I-I've never even been this close to a baby! How would I know? Besides, you're the parents. You should choose." Harry said quickly.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "No Harry, we think you should. We don't have anything. Maybe you do." Hermione said, struggling up.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Fred commented quietly, "It can't be worse than either of the kid's parents' names."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Five minutes later, Fred was still holding his ribs in pain as his twin shook his head in amusement. "Wrong move, Gred."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Throughout the minutes where Ron had assaulted Fred, Harry looked pensive. He had a huge knowledge of spells, potions, ancient texts and languages, but baby names? That just wasn't his-

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ He backtracked for a moment, trying to remember something. He looked into the kid's eyes, trying to find something. He smiled though, when he looked into the sapphire eyes of his godson.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _It's as if his heart is right behind those eyes, _Harry mused, looking into the cobalt depths of his godson's eyes, attempting to discover exactly what fit the child.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ _Heart. That's it!_ Harry knew that a name relating to the heart would fit the child.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Something to do with the heart." Harry said softly, and most of the people in the room turned to him, looking right at him. "It should have something to do with the heart."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry stepped closer to his godson, looking him in the eye. The child, turning to its godfather, smiled toothlessly and reached up with its arms, as if trying to hug him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "He wants to hug you." Ginny said, giggling.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Hug…" Hermione said, looking pensive. "Hugh!" She cried out, that familiar light when she realizes something important back within her eyes, "That's it! Hugh in Germanic meant heart or spirit. I read it in a baby name booklet."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Hugh Weasley huh?" Charlie said, moving over to his nephew. "Kind of has a ring to it."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I like it." Ron said, smiling.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry nodded, feeling it was appropriate.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Thus, the youngest Weasley had a name.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry led the others inside, holding his godson carefully, lovingly. He had such a peaceful look on his face, and everyone could see it and draw warmth from it.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "If he's that happy now, wait till you give him his own kid." Ron muttered, elbowing Ginny, who blushed hotly, before kicking her brother in the shin. Juvenile yes. Satisfying, yes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The other Weasleys and non-Weasleys present had a few titters as well, the Headmaster chuckling and his eyes twinkling, a sight few had seen in a while.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry remained oblivious, meeting eyes with his godson. Finally, he broke eye contact and smiled at everyone, albeit a little shakily.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Hi everyone," He said softly, but everyone could hear him, "Thanks for coming."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I can't believe you actually found this place Harry. Where did you get it?" Hermione said in amazement, looking around.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Remus smiled and cleared his throat. "Lily and James left you the Marauders Castle. I imagine you've had quite a time here." Remus said, smiling.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The twins looked in awe at the Marauders home base. "Wicked…" One of them whispered.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Oh Merlin Harry, please tell me you got rid of all the pranking items." Ron pleaded.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry chuckled. "Nope. But we'll get to those later. Right now, I think its time we talked." Harry said, turning his eyes over the crowd to rest on the second most powerful wizard alive (due to the fact that Voldemort was a pile of ash).

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I think so too Harry." Dumbledore said, head bowed, in respect, in acknowledgement, and meekness in the face of a forgiveness he did not deserve, yet would receive anyway.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "So…" Harry began, taking a deep breath, and the silence was deafening without his voice. The Weasleys looked in a mixture of eagerness and fearfulness, which was echoed by Dumbledore and Remus. "I have no clue where to start." Harry said, shrugging his shoulders, grinning sheepishly, and looking more like the nineteen year old he was than the much older and stronger man he was seen as and acted as.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ After the laughter had subsided, Harry was still grinning sheepishly. "I really don't."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Then perhaps we should start, Harry." Dumbledore said, asking permission with his piercing blue eyes.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry nodded, crossing his arms, an unreadable look on his face.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry, I have wronged you more than anyone else here. My decisions have hurt you, and were not my decisions to make. I should not have tried shielding you from the truth, and should never have doubted you." Dumbledore said quietly, the twinkle gone.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "No, you shouldn't have," was all Harry supplied for the Headmaster. He looked more and more like the cold young man that had set foot in his office months ago, demanding his wand and his things back. The traces of what the Weasley had helped him recover was gone, replaced by a stone mask. But this was what Dumbledore knew he needed to face.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I… am truly sorry, Harry. That is all I can say." Dumbledore said, bowing his head in sorrow, shame, and defeat. His tone was beaten, his shoulders slumped, and he looked like the ancient man he truly was. "I can never do enough to recompense for what I have done. I am grateful you gave me this chance to say that, face to face."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I see." Harry said, holding his mask of pensiveness up while struggling internally. As with the Weasleys and Remus, Dumbledore's betrayal had cut both ways now, and it hurt the Headmaster enough to break the old man's seemingly boundless youthful spirit, however trapped in an aging body.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The silence was like thunder.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "And I forgive you."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Albus Dumbledore, despite having lost much emotional control, was not expected to react as he did. The aging Headmaster's head jerked up in shock, and a small, silvery tear trickled down his face. "Wh-What?" Dumbledore asked, allowing shock to come into his voice for the first time in decades.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I forgive you, as I forgive everyone in this room." Harry said softly, looking at each and every person in the room in the eye, resting on the Headmaster, the last to be forgiven in the room. "I do this, not because you have earned it, or because I will forget what happened, but because I want to forgive you."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Albus Dumbledore felt like he was a hundred years old again, feeling age-old weariness leave him for but a moment. "I… thank you, Harry. You are a better man than I could ever hope to be." He said quietly, and his words sank in to everyone in the room. Albus Dumbledore acknowledged Harry as his superior.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Even Harry seemed thrown. "I… thank you." Harry muttered, now reminding everyone of the shy young boy he once was.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Silence again, to be broken by the loud crack of Dobby the house-elf. "Harry, sir, lunch is ready!" Dobby said squeakily.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ron looked up, having been staring at his son for the duration of the silence. "Did someone say lunch?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ After a few moments in which everyone looked in shock at Dobby, Bill asked incredulously, "You have a house-elf?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry chuckled. "What, you think I could clean this place on my own?" Harry said, grinning at them.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry, I hope you're paying Dobby, because-" Hermione began, and despite having given up S.P.E.W. to fight Voldemort, she was still an avid supporter of house-elf rights.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Of course I am Hermione." Harry said, cutting in smoothly. "I wouldn't have taken Dobby in any other way."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I can't believe you hired that one," Ron said, shaking his head in amazement.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "He is nutters, but he's good company." Harry shrugged, leading them into the dining room.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Halfway through the feast (meal was too small a word), Harry excused himself to go the bathroom. When he was on his way back, Ginny cornered him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Uh… Harry…" Ginny started, unsure and insecure, obviously seeking something.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry and Ginny locked eyes for a moment. An unseen message passed through to both of them, both unsure of what to do, regarding them.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "What do we do… about… us?" Ginny asked quietly, looking into Harry's eyes, her brown eyes shining.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I… don't know Ginny." Harry said softly. Ginny sniffed and her head drooped, but Harry pulled her chin back up, cupping it between two of his fingers. "But… I'd like to give us another try."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ginny broke out into a giant smile. "I'd like that to."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Together, they walked back into the dining room, hand in hand.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ After a hearty feast, Harry's guests and himself sat in their chairs, steaming cups of tea with their own specific blends and type were in front of them. They sat in silence, having mostly chit-chatted throughout the meal. Finally, Harry decided to unveil his last secret. Where he had gotten his power.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I suppose," Harry began, looking up into the eyes of the assembled, "Some of you," Harry looked at Hermione, who blushed, "Want to know exactly how I knew all those spells and where I got the power to do something like that."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ They all nodded, Hermione especially furiously. "You're powerful Harry," Remus commented, "I could testify that the first time I saw your fully corporeal Patronus. But… that… was… beyond the scope of even a hundred wizards combined!"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry smiled inside. _A hundred and fifty, actually, Remus, _he thought to himself.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry, where did you learn all of that?" Hermione asked, eager for knowledge as always.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Let me tell you a story," Harry said, before taking a sip of his earl gray tea and sighing, then he got up. "About nine hundred years ago, the Gryffindor line was being hunted by a group of Dark Wizards known as the Fang of Slytherin, who were a group of pureblooded wizards who wished to hunt down and kill the Gryffindor line to avenge their fallen master, Salazaar Slytherin."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Hermione, Remus, and Dumbledore nodded. "I am familiar with this." Dumbledore said, sipping his own tea. "The Gryffindor line hid, and was never heard from again."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Indeed." Harry said, pacing now. "However, history forgets to mention the bloody raid that happened just before that. The Fang killed off most of the Gryffindors, sparing the youngest, a squib. They believed he wasn't a threat."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "The squib's name was Alexander Gryffindor." Harry said softly, remembering everything he had learned. Now everyone was spellbound, wondering at the new information on what some considered the greatest Hogwarts founder's family.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "The squib fled for his life, hiding within the muggle world. The Fang had almost been wiped out by the Gryffindor's in that raid, but one important member remained. The last blood relative of Salazaar Slytherin, whose line would produce a boy named Tom Riddle." Harry paused there, feeling a familiar anger and hate at that name, and feeling the anger of all those around him too.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "As the Gryffindor line hid, so did the Slytherin line, until the Heir of Slytherin came to Hogwarts and began the work Slytherin had begun." Harry pause again, remembering his own shock at the next few sentences.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "So Alexander hid, disguising himself as a muggle. He knew, as all Gryffindor's did, that there would one day be an Heir of Slytherin, and he would follow the way of his grandfather, Godric Gryffindor, who promised to stand against Slytherin always. Alexander remembered Godric's own ancient spell, that weaved an ancient magic into the bloodline."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Remus looked shocked, as did everyone else. "I don't remember anything about that!" Remus said incredulously.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "It was hidden, unlike the legend of the Heir of Slytherin." Harry said, smiling slightly. "Gryffindor was a bit sneakier than Slytherin in that way. So Godric had weaved a spell into the bloodline that would guide the Heir of Gryffindor into battle against the Heir of Slytherin. Alexander, despite being a squib, had that spell within him. He knew that the Heir of Gryffindor would be the only stand against the Heir of Slytherin, so he changed his name to protect the line." Harry paused again, remembering the shocking statement.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "He changed his surname to Evans."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ The statement was akin to a bomb dropping.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "WHAT!" Remus cried out in shock. He, as Dumbledore, Hermione, and Ginny remembered instantly, Evans was the maiden name of one Lily Potter, mother of Harry Potter.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Soon realization hit the others, like a shockwave.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry, does that mean-" Ginny asked, eyes wide.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yeah. It does. And so, the Evans line kept marrying into muggle lines, but the spell stayed, until an Evans had her own magical powers awakened. She was powerful, aided by the ancient blood within her. Her name was Lily Evans." Harry smiled. "She married into another powerful bloodline, the Potters. And so, Harry James Potter was born, the future Heir of Gryffindor."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "That's… amazing. Incredible. If it was anyone else other than you Harry, I wouldn't believe it. But… it has a certain fit to it, that a Gryffindor should fight a Slytherin again, repeating the ancient battle." Dumbledore said, chuckling.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Right. Now, the spell kicked in on my seventeenth birthday," Harry said, shivering as he remembered how painful and overwhelmingly hot he felt. It felt like he was internally combusting. "And Gryffindor came to me in a dream, or a half-delirious, crazed, insane vision caused by the intense pain I was in at the time."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You were in Azakaban…" Ginny whispered, her eyes almost tearful, shining and brown.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Indeed. I thought I was dying." Harry said, "But instead I was saved. That spell drove of the insanity the Dementors had driven me to." Here, everyone winced. "But Gryffindor told me it wasn't enough. The Heir of Slytherin was damn near invincible with all the transformations he had undergone."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry paused again, looking around the room, remembering how the next spell changed his life. "So, Gryffindor dipped into an ancient spell, and gave it to me to use. A spell that was dangerous and insane, and the only plan I had." Harry said, smiling. "_DiusIustitia Animus."_

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Divine Justice of the Spirit?" Hermione asked, puzzled.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "A ritual, actually." Harry corrected, seemingly ignoring the question. "But all the same. It took some of my blood, tears, and the use of my scar. My blood because Voldmort now shared it. Tears of a wronged one. A connection to visualize the one who was doing the injustice." Harry paused, running a hand along the scar on his arm from the ritual. "But it was worth it. I called up the Divine Justice of the Spirit, called upon spirits. I in effect, summoned up the spirits of those who died and cried for justice against Voldmort. I called upon them, and I got them."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry paused again, letting what he had told them sink in, before continuing. "Those who died by Voldemort's hand came back to me. Those who died by his servant's hands too. All those who wanted justice." Harry said quietly, his words enchanting all of them. He savored the next words. "My parents."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ For a moment, there was silence, broken by the sound of Remus hitting the floor with his arse in shock. "What?" was the word of the day, apparently.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Not just them. Sirius too." Harry said, his voice gaining momentum in the awed silence. "All sorts of strong souls who screamed for justice. Not all of Voldemort's victims, especially the muggle ones, were capable of being called, but strong souls of good wizards came. The Prewett brothers," Harry said, looking at Mrs. Weasley, formerly Molly Prewett, their sister whom the two were outraged would betray Harry, who looked extremely guilty and saddened, "Cedric, and those of the original Order of the Phoenix who died, as well as others not in the order. Many souls."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You… got their power?" Mr. Weasley asked in shock.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "More than that. Their spirits came to me. For two years I got to live with a crowd of people in my head," Harry said, grinning, "I thought I was going insane for a little while. But in reality, those were two of the greatest years I ever had, refining my powers, talking with my parents and Sirius mainly. The other souls were quiet, mostly only letting me use their knowledge, rarely conversing with me. I barely spoke with even Cedric. The only other main soul I talked to a lot was Godric Gryffindor."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ If anyone was only on the verge of being shocked, they had just been brutally kicked off the edge.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "He didn't come with the _DiusIustitia Animus_ ritual, but rather came with the original spell, to pass on his knowledge. The spell simply reinforced his presence." Harry said, looking out at everyone, to see if they thought he was crazy.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ron began shaking his head, chuckling in the silence. "Only you Harry, would go to Azakaban and eventually become the Heir of Gryffindor and use a spell to gain the power of hundreds of wizards." Ron barked out a laugh, and the others joined him, even Harry, who did think it was kind of strange. "Only you have that strange sense of luck."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "That I do Ron." Harry said, smiling.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "So, aside from this rather…enlightening secret, is there anything else you'd like to tell us Harry? You're half-merperson? You're secretly a government agent?" Remus teased, laughing.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Nope, I'm afraid I'm just plain old Harry James Potter." Harry said, grinning as the table burst into laughter again.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Plain old Harry Potter? The words were never to be used in the same sentence.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Through the laughter, Dumbledore managed to calm himself down first. "So Harry, what do you plan to do now?" Dumbledore asked, looking at Harry pensively.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry looked thoughtful. "Haven't really thought of that yet. While hanging out here as a layperson has been great and all, learning this castle's secrets, I'm not the type to sit around and do nothing. I suppose I need something else to do, a job."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Mr. Weasley looked up from his cup of tea. "You could come work as an Auror, like Ron." Arthur suggested.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Ron looked delighted by the prospect of his best friend working alongside him. "How about it Harry?" Ron asked.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry thought about it, but shook his head. "I don't need to chase the Dark Wizards, they chase me. I think I've had my fill of fighting for now." Harry replied thoughtfully, his eyes full of conviction.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Well, that makes my job a bit harder." Ron chuckled, and those gathered shared the chuckle.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "So, where can I work that I would want to…" Harry mused, tapping his chin with his finger.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Remus Lupin turned away from the Boy-Who-Lived for a moment, sipping his tea, when he caught the eye of Albus Dumbledore. A message passed between them, a silent, lightning quick conversation. Remus nodded almost imperceptibly, remembering how he would rather be doing something else anyway. Teaching DADA was great and all, but Remus also wanted to work for werewolf rights, and Arthur could always use more hands on that side of the board.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Harry, I have a proposition for you." Dumbledore said, his twinkle fast approaching star bright.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry looked curious, and nodded. He lifted his teacup, eyeing Dumbledore's twinkle warily.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "How would you like to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts in the coming semester?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry spat out his earl gray tea all over the white tablecloth. Ginny choked on her tea, as did Hermione. Ron dropped his teacup. Remus, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Bill, Charlie, and Dumbledore simply smiled in amusement.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ While Hermione was hammering away on Ginny's back to clear her lungs of tea, and Ron magically repaired the teacup, Harry managed to croak out, "What?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "What do you say Harry?" Remus asked, smiling.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "But Remus, aren't you teaching that?" Ginny asked.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I'd much rather be helping your father convince all of those anti-werwolf people to repeal the laws. Teaching is fun and all, but in a few years people will start trying to get me fired." Remus said, giving a tired, sad smile. "I'd feel much better if the kids were in your hands, Harry."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Harry looked around the table, this sea of expectant, smiling faces, and smiled slowly. "Why not?"


End file.
